Good Friday - What Kind of Sacrifice?

Last night, Maundy Thursday, we washed one another's feet.  It takes a strange kind of courage to kneel before a stranger, to wash her feet, to risk that kind of tenderness. I go to sleep wondering what it means: to live that way, to breathe that way, to risk life that way day after day.

This morning, the air is cold, the sky is gray.  Good Friday?  I think of all the violence in the world, all the weaponry, all the bullying.  I think about my own temper, the violence within thinly veiled by education and habit. 

And there's Jesus on the cross, still reaching out to the world, still reaching out to the armies of the world, still reaching out to me and you.  "Forgive one another," he says.  "Let go of all that anger," he says.  "God is one," he says.  "God is enough."

Thinking about Jesus and Good Friday, I'm stunned by his integrity, by his passion.  How can he be so focused - in all that pain - and speak of love, of forgiveness, of surrender?  How can he turn to God - over and over and over again - and trust in God's guiding hand?  In all that pain?

There's the troubling sense, in gospel narrative, of the crowd's disinterest in Jesus' suffering.  Or maybe their fears around intervening.  I ache for that - and I find myself among them.  Do I watch rather than intervene?  Do I weep privately without acting publicly?  What about Peter's denial?  Is there some of Peter in us all?

I pray, this Friday, for all of us: for those who experience the fist, the bullet, the gun, the bigotry, the knot of hunger every day.  I pray, this Friday, for all of us: for those who feel a call to something different, to the common good, to nonviolence, to discipleship and joy and hope.  I pray, this Friday, for Jesus: for his courage, for his surrender, for his faith.  May I do more than watch.