Good Friday

Plans for Great Expectations continue to hurtle along… the official registration form is now available here, and you can also get a flyer to post at your church or college here. Please advertise this event to anyone in your church or campus ministry who cares about the future of Presbyterian outreach. If you’re a pastor, I honestly don’t expect you and your entire congregation to show up… but I do ask you to send those two or three people in your congregation who really care about ministry to college students, and consider attending yourself. Even if members of your congregation have never participated in an event like this before, we hope that this will be the time and place when they can get involved. Also note that the deadline for registration is May 15. That will allow us to make sure we have enough food for your lunch, and that the food we provide doesn’t make you puff up like a blowfish. So in the interest of your own health and safety, please register by May 15!!

I just got back from a Good Friday Seven Last Words service downtown. The Presbyterian churches I know here in Boston don’t have Good Friday services, so I went to a great ecumenical service hosted by a Catholic community, the Paulist Center. One of the reflections we heard reminded us that we are an Easter people living in a Good Friday world. And so we are. We live in a world where people continue to be crucified by the ravages of war, torture, gun violence, and hunger. With Jesus, millions cry out, “I am thirsty,” from lack of access to clean drinking water. This same darkness affects young adults. A February 2 Boston Globe article by Judy Foreman reports that almost half of American 19-to-25 year olds “meet standard criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder,” according to a recently published study. Young adults are often isolated and struggling, without critical relationships and communities to help them through the final maturing process. Like Jesus, they too feel forsaken. The darkness of the crucifixion story resonates with us because it reflects the reality we see every single day—in our families, in our communities, in our world.

For those of us who stand at the foot of the cross as Jesus dies, as our sisters and brothers die around us, what are we called to do? How would Jesus have us quench their thirst, and stop their crucifixions? God calls some of us to do that through collegiate ministry, but not everyone—we each have unique gifts and unique places where we have been called to serve. So on this Good Friday, perhaps we should ask ourselves how we might faithfully follow Jesus to the cross. Who has Jesus given into our care as he hangs from that tree?

May God richly bless you on this Good Friday, and bring you to the joy of Christ’s resurrection on Easter morn.