Reading Francis

Good Friday God

We want the God of Easter, an all-powerful God who conquers death.

We want the God of Emmaus, an all-knowing and wise God who can explain how in the grand plan this wreckage makes righteous sense.

But sometimes what we get is the God of Good Friday, an all-loving God who hurts with us rather than try to explain or fix, not play-acting but fully experiencing the loss that loving deeply always risks.

The God of Good Friday doesn’t have a lot of competition in the marketplace of idols and ideas. Power, righteousness and omniscience have a lot more shelf appeal than vulnerability and suffering.

But it’s the Good Friday version of God that truly leads with Love and opens the door to Joy and Peace, even if they share space with Sorrow and Ache.

Seek that God, the God that runs contrary to the superhero deity type. Good Friday is always just around the corner, and you’ll want company when it comes.