Good Friday Cross Walking

Our church, in concert with every other church in our community, participates in an amazing tradition each Good Friday. Together, undivided by denomination and united only by our shared Christian faith, we walk in solidarity from the historic Mission, winding our way through the delicate streets, into the scenic public park in the center of our town. We carry crosses and sing, recite liturgy, pray and read Bible verses and elements of the crucifixion story at various points along the way. We do this in tangible eloquent remembrance of the walk to Calvary Jesus took while carrying his cross with our sins upon it. And in gratitude for our receipt of such an enormous gift.

It is fascinating that every year on Good Friday, this walk begins with a finite number of Christians and ends with a much bigger crowd. Along the "Cross Walk" route, random people always join us and join this symbolic journey and experience that is inevitably powerful and moving. This year, what began with perhaps 150 people ended with over 400. I am so moved and excited and so grateful to be able to publicly display my faith and love for God in this neat way.

As I walked today with my family, my heart and mind were particularly emotionally raw. As I prayed and sang about a Godless world that recklessly and with evil malice condemned Jesus to die for no reason beyond their human contempt for his message, I could not help but be humbled with personal and societally relevant questioning of my own soul. As a Christian for whom this season is unspeakably holy - if I were living in the time of Christ and made to watch all this awful suffering and crucifixion of my Lord on the cross, what would my reaction have been? Would I have been so angry and filled with hateful contempt for those who would perpetrate this unthinkable, horrific act to an innocent person I love that I would have been blinded to the greater purpose for the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Would I have so despised those who nailed Jesus to a cross that I would have, in my human, earth-bound reaction, missed the deeper, sacred, heavenly event that would eclipse the suffering and turn darkness into light? Would my own humanity, essentially, have caused my emphasis to be placed not on God's perfect divinity but on my own thirst for punitive righteousness on the people in the square that day who demanded that Jesus be killed?

My answer is not what I would desire it to be. But at the honest crux of myself, it is what I must answer. I sadly admit that my grief, anger, despair, and deep emotion would have placed me in jeopardy of allowing myself to respond with secular heart to that which can only be appreciated from a sacred perspective.

My blinding anger with those whose evil actions caused Jesus' death may have led me to fail to experience the resurrection, which is the miracle of God's gift, and the heart of the Christian faith which has moved mountains and changed the course of history - one heart at a time. That I might have missed the ultimate gift of Christ because I was so distracted by the wrapping was a deeply sobering thought.

This realization was met with tears as I walked under the warm California sun. Those who know me understand that my well of emotion runs deep and is easily tapped by matters of the soul and tuggings of the heart. So, while crying as I walked, and feeling my spirit stirring (while also juggling the concerns that my tears would distract others from the message of this "Cross Walk", or by blurred vision cause me to trip and sprawl out somewhere along the sidewalk - also with obvious distraction potential), I was hit by yet another spiritual brick.

I believe that coincidence cannot be claimed that Terry Schiavo's life is ebbing, under the achingly wretched conditions we are all aware of, on this, the most sacred of weeks in the holy calendar of our shared faith. My mind and heart, thoughts, prayers, and tears have been focused on this woman and her family most every hour I've spent awake this week. My convictions about this case are industrially strong. My heart continues to weep for those blessed parents who must watch their beloved daughter die at the hands of another. My entire being is filled with anger and - dare I say it - acidic hatred for those who would so cruelly and unnecessarily take the life of an innocent, weak, voiceless woman.

Without being awake to it, I have become so angry at the events and people causing them that I have forgotten (or ignored the obligation) to love them anyway. I have forgotten to forgive them, as God calls us to. I have forgotten that the perfection of God is not prohibited or confined by the evil of men. That God has created and loves us ALL, despite our sins - and indeed, is this not the point of Easter? That God's offered gift may not be accepted, but His hand remains extended to ALL PEOPLE and ours, because our love includes obedience, must too.

And that, most of all, God is bigger than the size of our problems. And that though He promises us that the earth is not His dwelling place and people will stray far from Him in our resistance of His loving plan for us, ultimately, God's His Kingdom will come and His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. In the end, God wins. That we know the destination of this journey is essential comfort when the immediate path we are walking on becomes rocky, dark, threatening, and painful.

God can and does work miracles, even through death.

And God knows no boundaries to love.

So must we not. So must I not.

On this Good Friday, as I walked and remembered the Via Dolorosa, my heart was under construction. As I weep with thankfulness for the gift of salvation, I also pray for forgiveness from my own sin of hating evil and those who pursue it MORE than I am showing my love for God by my obedience to his commandments of loving all people, trusting in Him with all my heart, and leaning not unto my own understanding.

I felt God's hand on my heart today. And though I continue to spend time in prayer for a miraculous intervention in the imminent death of Terri Schiavo, I no longer hate those at whose hands she may perish. I am investing my energy in seeing the light of God's presence in all places, not dwelling in darkness found only in pursuing the angry venom, frustration, hurt, and hate that has so seasoned my thoughts this past week.

My spirit is being restored and my faith, strengthened, because God continues to refine my soul and remind me that the life f Jesus was not in vain and the promises of God are truth I can cling to when the pendulum of world chaos swings perilously askew. I am eternally grateful to know that I can be spared the dreadful pendulum ride. I am grateful to be be reminded that we are not called to walk in darkness but to dwell in the light.

I am grateful.