good friday
Last night, we gathered to remember Jesus’s final meal with his friends. They were celebrating the Jewish Passover, recalling the time their ancestors were rescued from an oppressive, violent empire. I can’t help but wonder if they were also remembering how the wisdom, healing, and love they were experiencing through Jesus was liberating them.
Jesus Washing Peter’s Feet by Ford Madox Brown, 1852-56.
Their hopes still high for a Messiah who would save them from the Roman regime, they must have been stunned to see Jesus get up from the dinner table and begin washing their feet. Seeing him stoop so low was beyond unsettling. Their expectations were being overturned right before their eyes.
It was stunning, yet looking back so in line with the kind of Love he embodied time and time again.
We spent some time after dinner recalling ways Love has been embodied in our own journeys through the:
overwhelming kindness of strangers,
anonymous gifts in seasons of need,
compassionate presence in times of fear,
neighbors who fed us,
the big-hearted drawing of a small child,
a parent who stayed up to give an insulin shot,
the quirky community that makes room for our quirks.
As we remembered, we were reminded of a Love that soothes, heals, stays and includes. Love that goes the extra mile, that shows up, that will not leave us alone or untended.
The Love embodied in Jesus was this – and More. His boundary-breaking love persisted in the face of threats - it upset the powers that be, it disrupted the social order, and it threatened the status quo. It upended the idea that life only comes through domination or upward mobility.
Jesus will be arrested, jailed, and executed alongside two other convicted criminals.
This “good” Friday is a good day to reflect on the radical love embodied in Jesus, to confess the ways we have resisted this downward way, and listen for what Love might be calling us to disrupt right now. It’s also a good day to pause and remember those whose love of neighbor has cost them their lives.