An essay for Good Friday
"I’m here, you’re
not alone. Shhhh, now, I’m here. And with those words, I lift a crying baby up and out
of her darkness. She’s unaware of where she fits in her life, perhaps, but I
know just where she is. I’m never far from her, even though to her new mind
I’ve disappeared every time I’m not in her line of sight, but that’s not true.
And so when she wakes up or when she’s lonely
or when she’s hungry or just wants someone to hold her, to calm her heart, she
cries out and I quickly come to her, I rush to her, and I lift her up into my
arms, shhhh, I’m
here, you’re not alone, I’m here, I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I say.
Oh, I’m teaching her something: I’m
teaching her that I will always come for her. I’m teaching her that she is safe
and secure. I’m teaching her that I am reliable, that she is believed, that I
don’t believe she’s manipulating me or bossing me. I’m teaching my child that I
am here and she is not alone. Dry your tears, small girl, I’m here, I’m always
here. I will always come for you.
I’ve heard that most of
our theology is autobiography. I think that’s true. I think we often
project what we learned about authority or our parents, in particular, onto
God. And then we often parent our children in the way that we believe God is
parenting us. So if we believe God is a terrible judge with exacting standards
and a trapdoor to hell, then that changes how we move through our lives, how we
judge others, particularly our children. And yes, I think that damages people.
But what if we see God through the metaphor
of a mother with a newborn babe? what do we see instead? After all, the metaphors for God’s love are
diverse throughout Scripture but I’m often reminded in these tender days just after
giving birth and caring for a newborn that I’m part of that metaphor, too, with my labour and my
pain, with my ferocious protectiveness and my consuming love.
My entire body yearns for my child, watch us
in these early days how we curl into each other, how I protect her, nourish
her, comfort her, even how I delight in
her – you’re seeing a glimpse of something divine here, I believe.
Isn’t this one of the
great gifts God has given us? A glimpse into how God loves us? a share of
the joy, a sign and a foretaste of the Kingdom among us already? God in his
goodness, sharing with us what it means to love so selflessly, so
unconditionally, so completely?
In the Scriptures, there is one
little thing often overlooked on Good Friday. In Matthew 27:51, we are
told that at the moment when Jesus cried out and gave up his spirit, the moment
he died, the veil
in the temple that symbolically stood between God and man, the entrance to the
Holy of Holies, was torn in two…from the top to the bottom.
There is no barrier between us anymore, the
Holy of Holies is open to us all and it’s not because of anything we did or
didn’t do. Because this was a rescue, this was redemption, this was the death
that made death die, this was the moment when all of creation was redeemed as
Jesus swept into the domain of death and hell, suffering and sickness, sin and
horror, to cure us and then rise again victorious.
And when I think of that
veil being torn from the top to the bottom, now I imagine God
sweeping into the world, like a mother to her crying child in the darkness with
that physical yearning, gathering us up out of our loneliness and our hunger,
our longing and our needs to whisper into our necks: I’m here, I’m here, you’re
not alone, I’m here.
I’ve got you, I’ve got
you, I’ve got you, darling, I’m here."
-Sarah Bessey
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