Good Friday 2022

Good Friday 2022

Dear Friends in Christ,

On Tuesday I attended the clergy Chrism Mass and renewal of ordination vows at Grace cathedral, which is traditionally held on the Tuesday of Holy Week. It has been three years since we have been able to gather in person for this special occasion, and it felt so good to worship with my friends and colleagues and remember why I do what I do.

To get there and back I took Bart for the first time in over two years – another significant though less special event. As I left the Antioch Bart station on my return, I reflected that the last time I was there was to offer Ashes-to-go on Ash Wednesday, and I remembered fondly how meaningful that was. I found myself pondering what Good Friday-to-go might look like. Could we hand out the palm crosses left over from Palm Sunday to remind people of the sacrifice Jesus made? Or maybe distribute the leftover wafers from the reserved sacrament which is always disposed of on Good Friday? Or pass out rocks to symbolize the hard places in our lives and invite people to leave them somewhere that makes those things bearable? Or invite them to write their confession on flash paper and burn it in a bowl with prayer? What other signs and symbols suggest Good Friday? Maybe you have other ideas. I don’t know if Good Friday-to-go is a good idea, let alone a real or even a feasible thing, but it did get me thinking about how as a community we should live our faith our in the world and not just in church.

As Lent ends and we embrace the Alleluias of Easter once more with joy and a renewed sense of hope, the things that have made this Lent especially hard – a war in Ukraine, a third year of the pandemic, racial injustice, political division, social tension and especially the rise in white nationalism, the hardship of people in Shanghai under covid lock down – are not going to magically disappear overnight. How do we help those weighed down by worry and despair to like us, see past the things of this world to the promises of the Kingdom of God?

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Jane+