What just happened?

What just happened? That’s how we may be feeling about this past year. What just happened? Even as we live into some kind of new normalcy, we are only beginning to grasp the recovery and need for healing ahead of us. We always carry memories of trauma, stress and loss in our bodies. We will be dealing with them for years to come.

What just happened? That’s how participants people felt. In a workshop called “Embodied Holiness,” the leader wanted the participants to do more than talk about a scripture verse. They were to make a bodily tableau of it. You could see the resistance on their faces after they got the assignment. I would have been one of the folks that headed for the door for a stretch or a coffee break.

One group—all women—had “blessed are those who mourn.” One woman, Mary, had offered to lie dead on the ground so she didn’t have to do anything. Another woman cradled Mary’s head in her lap. Two others knelt beside her and two others stood over them until they made a sort of cathedral over Mary, the dead woman’s body. The group of women then held the pose. It was full of love and sorrow. Like those leaning over the body of a loved one dying of Covid. Or those draped over the body of George Floyd last spring.

And then a sob rose right out of the midst of the group. No one could tell if it had been planned or even if it was real. Everyone was still as a grave. Then the body of Mary on the floor began to heave. The other women bent over her. Another began to weep. And still another let out a small yelp until the whole tableau was heaving over the body of the dead woman—who had somehow come back to life.

What just happened, everyone wondered. What did it mean? Who knows? But everyone sensed that the Spirit was there—in the body, in the flesh—and that no one who saw it will ever forget it.1

In the decades following Jesus’ death, the faithful began to wonder: what just happened? What does this death mean? Last Sunday we heard Mark’s account of the passion in which Jesus dies abandoned. Now we have heard John’s version, from several decades later, in which Jesus is a king reigning from the cross. His final words, “it is finished.” His death, victory.

Some of you remember the ABC program “Wide World of Sports” that aired for nearly four decades. Each week began with a melodramatic introduction that has become a national catchphrase: the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. A downhill skier hurtling through a heart-rending crash was the picture of the agony of defeat.

No one wants to lose. Everyone wants to be a winner . . . whether it is winning a game, getting first chair in the orchestra as I sought when I was younger, or getting a certain threshold of “hits” online. It’s all about being the best, proving ourselves, convincing ourselves that we are loveable and that our lives mean something.

Until we realize that life is filled with loss, with heartache, with letting go. The defeats, the things we cannot control, the unbearable sorrows are what make us human, define who we are, give us character, open our hearts.

What happened on Good Friday? And what does it mean? For centuries composers, poets, theologians, artists, writers and preachers have tried to express the meaning of this death. In a million different ways. With words and without.

In the gospel of John, Jesus’ death is his glory. Saint Paul adds that we boast only in the cross of Christ. The cross is our glory. From the cross streams healing, new life and resurrection. Lifted high on the cross Jesus draws all people to himself. All the people of the earth in all their beautiful diversity. Christ draws to himself our sorrows, our losses, our heartaches, and yes, our hopes and dreams for a better world.

No wonder the mood of the Good Friday liturgy is quite different from last Sunday. No wonder we lift high the cross. No wonder we celebrate the triumph of the cross this day. No wonder there is a hint of Easter at the end.

When we look back on the most painful, difficult or sorrowful time in our lives, there are often no words. What happened, we ask ourselves. We would have never chosen that suffering, but deep in our very being, we know that God was there. In our flesh. In our bodies. In our anguish, loss and tears.

So tonight we offer reverence to the cross. We use our bodies, offering a deep bow. If not for the pandemic, as has been done for centuries, some of us would stoop down to touch or kiss the cross.

In this ancient ritual, there are no words. It’s about Jesus and his death. But it’s also about our deepest losses. And the vast suffering in our world.

Maybe all we can hope is that the Spirit will be here tonight, in our bodies, in our frail flesh. What is happening? We only hope that the cross will be for us, healing and resurrection.

1Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World, pp. 48-51.