The cry of Good Friday in a suffering world
Today is Good Friday — the day on which Jesus himself cried out from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In every generation throughout history, this is a cry that has been on the lips of people in times of suffering and despair.
I have no doubt that people in Ukraine will asking the same question in their hearts today as they continue to endure the great evil of war. It’s a question heard by the side of every mass grave, over every shattered home and along each treacherous journey seeking refuge. It’s a question that must be asked — and one that can only be answered by God.
The same question comes to mind when we hear of famine in Afghanistan, or families fleeing and girls being denied their right to education. When we hear of great violence and deep suffering in Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Myanmar and countless other places. The UN Secretary General said last month that we are facing the highest number of violent conflicts since 1945. Again comes the cry to God: why have you forsaken us? Our suffering world cries out for food, safety, protection, peace — and justice.
Meanwhile in this country we are still living through a terrible pandemic, and millions still mourn those they loved. The cost of living crisis and grinding poverty are affecting millions of people. Nearly four million children in the UK are living in poverty, with families being forced to choose between rent, food, heating and fuel.
Out of all the shocking images that have come out of Ukraine since the war began, there is one I am particularly thinking about this Holy Week. It is a photo of a statue of the crucified Christ being removed from the Armenian Cathedral in Lviv, to be stored in a bunker to keep it safe. Jesus’ tortured body, his arms flung wide, is held by the men in an image reminiscent of Renaissance paintings of the descent of Christ — the moment when Jesus is taken down from the Cross after the Crucifixion on Good Friday.
The photo gathered a wide range of comments on social media — many people, like me, found the image profoundly moving. Other’s reaction were more sardonic. ‘People pray to this Jesus to save them, and he can’t even save himself’, was the response from some. Perhaps they didn’t hear the echoes of the first Good Friday in their reaction, the shadow of those who mocked Jesus in Mark 15:31: “He saved others, but He cannot save Himself!”
Confronted by the cruelty of the world, people have always struggled to see where God is and what God is doing — including those who were present at his death on the cross. This question is often seen as an obstacle to faith — but actually, it’s among the most faithful questions you can ask. After all, we hear it on the lips of Jesus himself.
On Good Friday the followers of Jesus must have thought they were seeing the defeat of good itself. Jesus, who had stood for everything that was loving, kind, good and true, was tortured and strung up. Where exactly is God when the innocent suffer? Does Good Friday show the absence and apathy of God?
Or could it be the exact opposite? For God doesn’t protect himself from the precariousness and cruelty of humanity. In Christ, God even allows himself to be subjected to the hurt and the hatred. He enters fully into the shattered sense of forsakenness that the widows and orphans of Ukraine and the millions of people suffering around the world must feel today. What seemed to be the moment of greatest separation from God was actually when God was with us — and for us — most intimately.
It is not just the images that stay with us on Good Friday. Today is marked by the sounds of great suffering. The sobs of women who have buried their loved ones in makeshift graves. The helpless response of those for whom great horrors have been seared into their imagination and who mourn their inability to stop it.
Suffering is not just physical, it’s visceral — it wracks our bones and reverberates around our hearts and escapes through wails and cries. The man on the cross makes the cry that sounds across history: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The cry that finds its echo in the millions of people around the world who feel forsaken this Easter.
We’re not given any answers or explanations on Good Friday. There is not much that can be said in response to the agony of people who feel utterly abandoned and totally alone. But today, I suggest the image of Christ being crucified, and this cry of pain, give us an indication of where Jesus can be found. On Good Friday, those deepest sobs from the darkest places resonate in the heart of the divine. The mother crying out her loss is Jesus’ voice. A child’s devastation is known, and seen, and felt in the heart of the Creator of all things. On Good Friday God is not sheltered and protected from the harm of the world. But utterly exposed to it. And it does in fact do its worst to him.
Don’t sanitise the cross or try and make it more palatable. This is a week of torture, death and brutality — the suffering we are still all to willing and capable of inflicting upon each other. God does not respond glibly to that suffering. He enters into it. We are called to do the same — not looking away from the horror of the world, but opening our arms to those affected by it, imitating the generosity of God who gives his life on the Cross.
The first Easter happened in the shadow of darkness, violence and uncertainty as well. Christ is with us — truly with us — on the Cross in the cruelty of the world today. And yet, in the resurrection, he promises us that this evil will never have the last word.
