Compiled by: Georgeanne Falstrom, Intern
PARISH LAY MINISTRY ACADEMY
TABLE OF CONTENTS

FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006
(Psalm 88; Lamentations 3:37-58; Hebrews 4:1-16; Romans 8:1-1)


“GOD WITH US"
By: Intern Kerstin

Scripture:: “You have taken up my cause, O Lord, you have redeemed my life.” Lamentations 3:58

Today we continue to wait for God to answer our cry, “come to me quickly.” Many of us like the disciples have given up. For them, Jesus’ death on the cross demonstrated that he really couldn’t take up their cause. It’s over. For us, God’s apparent silence tells us that God will not take up our cause….that God has not fully entered into our lives.

But as we look back on this day through the lens of Easter, everything changes. It is true that we still live in a Good Friday world. Thousands of people die daily, millions go hungry, and people continue to lose their homes and their jobs. Theologian Jurgen Moltmann once said, “Good Friday is the center of the world.” Perhaps nothing is truer. However, the cross shows us the inner connectedness between the world’s pain and God’s pain.

On this day we do see that in and through Jesus on the cross, God has fully taken up our cause, God has fully entered into our lives. God has lifted all of our burdens into himself, and this is how we recognize God’s love. The coming Easter morning shows us that this cup of sorrow from which we all drink is also the cup of joy. God has taken up our cause and has redeemed our lives not through existing radically apart from our lives and realities, but through existing radically among our lives and realities. He has entered in only to pull us out.

Prayer: God of suffering, we thank you for fully living in and among us. Your suffering which first appears to us as defeat is truly the ultimate victory. There is not Easter light without death’s darkness on Friday. We adore you for truly taking up our cause, for truly entering our realities so that we will be freed. Amen.