Good Friday

Good Friday

The courageous women who weep   John 18:1-19:42

“On Good Friday, so much focus is rightfully on Jesus' suffering on the cross. But let's look down below him and see the courageous women of John's story. In memory of them, let us pray for women who today will weep for their children, refusing to be comforted. And let us hold in prayer the women on today's Golgothas who, in the face of horrible suffering, somehow find the strength to hold each other up.”    Eileen D. Crowley, “Sunday’s Coming”, Christian Century April 11, 2017

In Arkansas last year starting on Easter Monday there were eleven executions planned because one of the drugs being used had an expiration date at the end of that month. There had not been an execution for twelve years. I remember that earlier execution well because I was a deacon at our cathedral then which is close to the governor’s mansion. We had an ecumenical prayer service for the person to be executed and the person he killed. I know I played the harp at the service, probably the African American spiritual, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”. We then went to the governor’s mansion and sang and prayed by candlelight until after the execution.

 All of the men on death row last year had killed young women. I wonder what these girls now in eternal life are praying for and if they are lighting candles. Some of the stories about the men reveal that they had awful lives with a lack of love from women like the ones who followed Jesus. My prayers today are of course that governors all over our country will stay executions and that eventually this state could abolish the death penalty.

My third prayer is that we will do our best to raise strong and loving women like the ones at the cross with Jesus so that their children will know love and not violence against others, especially against women.

Joanna   joannaseibert.com

Buechner: Maundy Thursday

Buechner: Maundy Thursday

 “’WHAT YOU ARE GOING to do,’ Jesus says, ‘do quickly.’ Jesus tells them, ‘My soul is very sorrowful, even to death,’ and then asks the disciples to stay and watch for him while he goes off to pray. His prayer is, ‘Abba, Father, all things are possible for thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will but what thou wilt,’ this tormented muddle of a prayer which Luke says made him sweat until it ‘became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.’ He went back to find some solace in the company of his friends then, but he found them all asleep when he got there. ‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,’ he said, and you feel that it was to himself that he was saying it as well as to them.” Frederick Buechner,  from The Faces of Jesus, The Frederick Buechner Center, Frederick Buechner quote of the Day.

Hofmann, Jesus Praying

We all so struggle with our own humanity. So many spiritual friends I meet with, including myself, spend a lifetime seeking perfection. Holy Week is a time for us specially to remember Jesus’ struggle with his humanity best told in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. On Maundy Thursday in these gospels Jesus lets us know how difficult the human condition is as he asks this cup to pass, he sweats “blood”, he suffers, he cries out in anguish, he thirsts, he even asks God, “where are you?”

A huge painting similar to Hofmann’s hung at the front of the Methodist Church where I grew up in Virginia. The image of Jesus praying in the garden is different from any of the other references in the gospels to his praying. This time scripture connects us to the human side of Jesus. This is an image to keep when we as well are praying for difficult situations in our lives.

We can talk to and identify with those who have had similar experiences to ours. I see this most in grief recovery groups where people listen to each other because they know that the other has some idea of the pain they are going through. I see this in 12-step groups where alcoholics and addicts and co-dependents listen to others who walked a very similar path to theirs. How amazing that our God loves us so much, so much that God came to be among us to let us know that God has experienced and understands what it is like to suffer and be human. There is no greater love.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Charleston: Woundedness and Compassion

Charleston: Recovery and Compassion

“Those who have been broken, in mind, body or spirit, who have been humbled and hurt, but have made their way back, held on and kept going, sought forgiveness and found redemption, discovered a healing they never expected, to all those who understand this experience without the need for further words, I offer this recognition: you are the sisters and brothers of compassion, the ones who know what it feels like, the ones who are witnesses to life reclaimed. Be blessed in your recovery, for each one of you is a source of faith for so many, who see in you the answer to a prayer they ask for themselves.” Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook Meditation

So many spiritual writers continue to tell us this truth as does our own experience. We become healers of the suffering in this world because we also know the face and body of internal and external injury. This is the continual story of how Easter can follow Good Friday. Once we have experienced suffering, we can learn about, experience compassion, compassion shown to us by others who also know about wounds, as they were ministered to by others who also were wounded. This can be the cycle of compassion.

There is a choice, however. We daily live with those who live through their suffering by causing more pain to others, an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. This is the life of fear and retaliation, hurting others before they can hurt us.  

Perhaps these who are so fearful were ministered to by those who never knew compassion, so they only learned about inflicting more suffering.

Perhaps we can help break their cycle by compassion, hearing their story, hoping they will share how their woundedness began.  This is what spiritual friends do.

We listen to each other’s story and look for sparks, compassion, the presence of God in our suffering and reminding each other that this presence is always, always there, there in people and places where we least expect it, the tears, the hug of a child, the nurse or physician or X-ray technologist who makes eye contact and holds our hand when they see our pain, the aging, crippled woman at the food pantry who tells us to have a blessed day. Our wounds can be openings for the presence of God, the great healer, in our life and the lives of others.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com