MEDITATION GOOD FRIDAY April 6, 2007

“Now from midday there was darkness over the whole land until 3 in the afternoon.”

An echo perhaps of the 9^th of the plagues sent by God to free the Israelites from their Egyptian masters. In the Book of Exodus: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward heaven so that there my be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be felt.’ So, Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven and there was a dense darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. People could not see one another and for three days they could not move from where they were…”

Mired in dense darkness, unable to move. He hangs from the cross, unable to move from where he is. . . .The women stand at a distance daring to look up from time to time. Hardly breathing. Terrified. In shock. Unable to move from where they were. . . . The alcoholic sitting alone except for his drink—his loved ones no longer able or willing to stand by him. The addict seeing the police car, telling her children, ages 4 and 5, “Run, run and hide,” lest she lose them again to foster care. She too takes off running—flying down the alley. But, she is stuck. Stuck in darkness unable to move. . . . Warring nations, young soldiers sent time and again, young men and women taught to make of themselves a bomb for killing others. Threats. Reprisals. Nothing new. Mired in dense darkness, unable to move. It is midday and darkness covers the land.

The people could not see one another. The soldiers mocking, striking, spitting, hitting, ridiculing, punishing, stripping him bare. Men unable to see him for who he is. Even the two on crosses beside him. Reviling him. Deriding him. These people could not see one another. . . . Children in the school yard teasing, sarcastic, bullying, rejecting. Prison guards in Abu Grave, Guantanamo, men on horseback in Darfur. Two men knock one night at the door of a home in Baghdad, a father and young son answer. Islamic hospitality. They ask for water. While the father goes to get it, they raise their guns and shoot the child. They cannot see the boy for who he is. . . . I drive my car along the road, avert my eyes from the one who is poor, the beggar, the one who staggers in broad daylight and falls in a drunken heap. I cannot—will not—see. It is midday and darkness covers the land.

An echo perhaps of the prophet Amos who describes the day of judgment when God is tired of leaders who trample the needy and bring ruin to the poor, tired of those who practice deceit and care only for themselves. “The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day, says the Lord God. . . . On that day I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation.”

The Roman governors on behalf of their king, taxing, taking, grabbin, laying burdens on the poor. Their collaborators, local leaders selling out for their own gain, or perhaps just to keep the peace, not make waves. It’s so easy to be a collaborator. Together they react to the threat posed by this man who proclaims his allegiance to a different King. . . .The darkness of those who seek only after their own wealth and comfort—and can never grasp enough to satisfy. The emptiness after the acquisition of more possessions. Stuffed but empty. The darkness of failing to notice that my own comfort is built on the despair of others. The darkness of my own complicity in destructive systems. Caught as we are in the mire of consumerism—bigger wants, grander desires, our unwillingness to make choices to change. . . . The darkness of those who have known their own betrayal of their best selves. Later when the college student looked back on it, he was shocked really—he was so sure of his ethical convictions when he agreed to be a part of the university experiment—the peer pressure of the group, its culture. . . within a few hours he had become someone he hardly knew—using his power to abuse others, and taking delight in it.

The darkness of the earth in broad daylight. Jesus hangs on the cross—near death. The dense darkness of the mass graves in Poland, Bosnia, Rwanda, the Cherokee trail of tears from Tennessee to Oklahoma. . . . The darkness of death. A darkness well-known to those who have fought on battle fields, journeyed with loved ones, or lived on the streets.

The darkness of grief. Feasts turned into mourning. Songs into lamentations. The wailing of the women of Jerusalem. Peter’s tears. Grief a measure of the loss. . . . The darkness of the first night spent in the house alone after his death. The darkness of emptiness and of wandering aimlessly around touching objects that serve only as reminders of life that once was. The darkness of not knowing what may lie ahead.

“Now from midday there was darkness over the whole land until 3 in the afternoon.”

Jesus cries out, “My God my God why have you forsaken me?” And haven’t we too cried out? Time and again, as darkness has covered our world, our lives, even our very own our selves. As we have come to know the darkness within. Those occasions when we have dared to enter the darkness of our own selves—armed with a flashlight perhaps and filled with anxiety. That overwhelming sense of aloneness—of the absence of God. Our deadness of spirit. Our stuckness. Our wishing for rescue and finding none. “My God my God why have you forsaken me?”

Thank God for that cry. For almost more than anything it assures us that in spite of our sense of abandonment—in fact we are not alone. Jesus the dying man—soon to be dead man—is with us. In the darkness of being stuck. The darkness of complicity and betrayal. The darkness of grief and loss—of all the letting goes. Of blindness and of failure to love. In the darkness of death itself.

There is more to darkness than meets the eye. As the psalmist reminds us: “Darkness and light are both alike to God.” We are not alone.