I was a Senior in University, and it was the first time I ever had to cook for myself. I made dinners recreationally, but it was more of an extreme sport than an art. I grew up with food magically in the kitchen until I moved into a university where there was always food magically in the cafeteria. I lived in an apartment with three other guys, all of them stuck having to feed themselves.
The apartment had a BBQ. How hard could this be? So, we made our dinner alongside each other, guessing how to craft the meal.
My roommate boiled a soup over the open fire of eggs, onions, and ketchup- it lasted three bites until he was stuck in the washroom for the entire night.
Another roommate always liked fried bananas, so he grilled them on the grill.
I made a chicken sandwich with a bun made from instant biscuit mix. After four bites, it was nothing but crumbs for the crows and a semi-cooked chicken.
An apartment of girls from our school watched us through the window, laughing like one would to a silent comedy. Later in the week, one of them invited me in and I told her of our disaster.
“Eric,” she said with an overwhelming kindness. “Just ask for help. We know of some recipes we can share. Just ask for help.”
Help. I hadn’t thought of that option up until that moment. I needed…help.
Good Friday is here, showing up like an unexpected guest and it isn’t going away until Easter Sunday.
Good Friday, the day Christ died. Christ left. Taken from us. Gone.
To experience this, we strip the altar. We read the Gospel right up to his death. We turn off the light we keep lit for the rest of the year. Clean out the Ambry. Do not bow to the cross when we enter the church. Dress in black. We sit in a lot of silence.
Why? Jesus is gone, in the grave.
Depending upon your Myers-Briggs Personality Type, the tension of this day can kill you. Yeah, yeah: Jesus died. Let’s rush to the resurrection, where everything gets resolved.
No, Good Friday doesn’t let you do that. Stay in the moment where no one knew what was going on and hope was buried by the government.
Why embrace this day?
When I was 14, I broke my left arm. I found for those three months in a cast, I kept reaching for things and couldn’t. This supported my Old Man’s theory that I was really left-handed, but I sought to fit in a right-handed world.
I really used my left hand, I discovered. But I only felt that when I no longer could use it.
My father’s birthday was a few days ago; he’s been dead for a couple of years. At times, when the phone rings, I half-expect him to be on the other line. He isn’t. There are books I’ll finish and want to recommend them to him, but I can’t.
Absence reveals necessity.
There is a haze that grows over the vision of Christ-followers.
We spend our lives living amongst Christ all the while not using Him, relying on Him, trusting Him, or, at the very most, trusting Him.
The haze grows.
We’re much too busy and important to turn to Christ. We get busy taking up extra shifts or spending time with our kinds. Whatever we have left in the week, we’ll rest. After that, if it works out, we’ll go to church or pray but only in the gaps of our scheduling.
Or maybe we stopped going to church altogether. It’s inconvenient or it’s irrelevant. We’ll joke: Does Jesus even go to church anymore?
The haze grows.
We stop being generous, stop serving our community, stop helping our neighbours. We stop tipping our baristas: after-all, it’s their employer’s job to give them a living wage. We become only passionate when we talk about movies, sports, or politics.
Our religion becomes more convoluted, with a million reasons why we can’t read the Bible or trust it or use it to help us see Jesus.
We grow to be self-regulating monsters, people who yell into the Universe, “I’m fine! Really! I’m fine!” In control of everything we see until we’re not and then we cry, scream, “Foul!”
The haze continues.
And Good Friday happens. Christ is taken from us. And suddenly, the haze is lifted, and we embrace the terror that we are absolutely alone in the cosmos. Our prayers echo against the stars, resonating in a hollow Solar System.
How long did it take for us to notice Christ was gone? Did it feel like a normal day, a usual day, when he was arrested and flogged and hung on the cross? Were we busy during the march to Golgotha? Were we counting on the recap that night, googling the days’ events through the news.
When did it happen? When was it when the Eucharist just became only crackers and juice?
When was the church no longer the witness to Christ in the world? But just a building where the followers of Christ are embarrassing us? Needed to be corrected? When did our priests became those people who needed to be corrected, bullied, and managed? When did our hymns become slogans, corporate jingles? Sermons into motivational messages?
The lesson of Good Friday: Christ is dead, did you notice anything different in your faith?
Anglicans, especially Canadian ones, don’t have the habit of using the term “Revival”.
For many of us, Revivals have the image of loud people preaching and tents filled with quaking Christians and snake handlers and dancing and long, long sermons.
This is a nightmare.
And yet the heart of the word is a simple heart’s posture: Come, Jesus, come!
In Good Friday’s case: Come back, Jesus, come back!
Or: I want to come back, Jesus, I want to come back!
This Lent season, I’ve been confronted with many places in my life that need Jesus. That I need Jesus.
When we are confronted with our absence, there is (2) responses we can take.
The first is to run from the pain of being wrong, bury it with apologies, and then never return to the place again. There’s no change, there’s no repentance. It’s just one does exactly what they were doing before-just as manic- but with a pinch of “I’m sorry”.
Shame and guilt can be a great seasoning for an unrepentant life.
The second is Revival. It is a cry, a scream, a tantrum we give our God. It is begging Christ to take us through the land of our wrongdoing, to examine and explain all that we have done. To be crucified with Him; only to be remade by Him on Easter Sunday.
We are revived by the work of Christ returning to our lives.
No longer living in a haze; we ask for help.
What is my prayer for this Easter? Simple. I want revival for my spirit. Come, Jesus, come. And it would be great if a Revival came upon my congregation and my city of Edmonton. But I will take Easter’s revival happening in my life.
Spending time with Jesus…it’s been a long time coming.
ericjkregel 