Good Friday

This is the night we
       Mourn.
                Our hearts lament.
                Our songs bewail in minor keys,
                      diminished by death.

This is the night
        minds are numbed
                 bodies tremble
                           and faces are buried in tear soaked palms

This is the night of utter loss;
       when the best is taken from us

This is the night
               Martin Luther King Jr was shot on the balcony
               Oscar Romero was gunned down at mass

This is the night of
          Auswitz, Dachau, Baden-Baden
                   And the millions of
                         Labor Camps
                         Execution Chambers
                         and Torture Rooms
                                littering the planet,
                                         strewn across history,
           fouling every human occupancy.

This is the night
       Darfur looks like our future
                and the millions who live in refugee camps
                become a permanent part of humanity.

This is the night
          we step onto the Trail of Tears

This is the night
          fear, corruption, avarice, and lust
                  blot out the sun, moon, and stars
                              and freeze our souls

This is the night
          innocent families are abandoned in the aftermath of tragedy

This is the night
          Truck-loads of people, seeking a better life, are found dead,
          forsaken by coyotes transporting them to the land of promise

This is the night
          passenger jets slam into twin towers

This is the night
          employers cut health care,
          miners contract black lung, and
          the children of Abraham blow each other up

This is the night
          babies eat lead tainted paint chips,
          school children are exposed to asbestos and
          pollution tips the planet to destruction

This is the night
          someone you love dies of cancer

This is the night
          Mary stood at the foot of a cross
                 watching
                      the life drain from the brutalized body of her first born child

This is the night
          the Hand Maiden of the Lord had to ask,
                “Why? O, Why? O, God, why?”

This is the night
          our very core aches with pain

On this night
          a void opens in our soul;
          a chasm rips us apart from everything we have known to be true;

On this night God dies

We come to this holy place
     this sacred space
        because this is the only container for our grief
        because this is the only space that can hold the enormity of our anguish
      because of this thing that has taken place.

There is a truth at the heart of this night.
      As uncomfortable as it is
            as much as we want to hurry past it
The truth is simply:
       only those who can sit with the pain of
              suffering
              sin
              broken hearts
              and crushed souls;

       only those
              who pause in the interval of eternity,
              when grief stops the world,
                      have the capacity
                      have the audacity
                              to let leak a hope that something is coming.

But for now:
           let us lock ourselves in an upper room
           let us weep and know the helpless hopeless loss
                    let Friday,
                           Holy Friday
                                  simply be the night,
Jesus died.