Good Friday. A day full of questions: Why? How long? What happens now? Why does sin still exist? Why do you still care, Lord? Questions start out being asked in outrage and despair and end up being asked in whispered anguish: Why?
When my son was five, he developed meningitis. He was in pain, scared, weakening in front of our eyes. I spent hours in the ER, pacing the hallway outside the door as the doctor performed an emergency spinal tap. I held him in his hospital bed, wiped his fevered body through the long night, prayed, sang, read stories, all to let him know I wasn’t leaving him alone in the midst of this life and death experience. And inside my heart, I was outraged, desperate, filled with anguish: Why?
Today, we stand at the foot of the cross to reflect on God, who suffers inconceivably to show a love bigger than life. The servant will be misunderstood and hurt, yet through his suffering, he will heal and save the world. People will see him and think he’s ordinary, even as he takes on the pain and suffering of everyone else to make things right, to show us how much we are loved and cared for.
How can you love us so much? Lord, have mercy. Amen. —