Today is Good Friday. I’m remembering a Friday a few years ago. My husband and I learned some heartbreaking news that a friend, a young woman, had reached the end of her life. Her three children gathered for goodbyes and last moments. Everyone wept. A few hours later, we also learned that our friends had welcomed a baby girl into the world. Death and also life, in that one day. I wrote a letter to this precious baby girl as a gift for her to keep, as her birth story begins on Good Friday.
Today, I am remembering this letter as I worry for friends who received a frightening diagnosis, and pray for another friend who weeps for her lost loved one. I believe my friend Elizabeth, who reminds us,
“We cannot get to Easter without Good Friday.”
I am ready to get to Easter. But we can pause at Good Friday first.
“Letter to a Baby Girl Born on Good Friday”
Dear one,
We have waited for you, hoped for you.
Your mama, daddy, grandparents, cousins, family, and friends can’t wait to see you and say that because you are here, this is surely a good day
We woke up this morning glad that we can mark this day as the one that brought more joy into the world. We know how we have done Good Friday in the past, remembering the darkness, remembering the words that we have chiseled down to neat phrases we can handle:
I thirst. My God. It is finished.
But it isn’t. Not for you, beautiful girl. It is just beginning.
And there we are. On this day, when we all look to the cross, toward its rugged vulnerability we also look at your sweet face, tiny and tender.
On this day, when so many mothers weep for children around the world, when fathers fear the broken systems that threaten their boys and girls, we hear your tiny cry. And it is a sound that stirs us to forever circle you in peace.
We listen fiercely to your whimpers and your wails and we promise,
like all the mothers and fathers that everything is gonna be okay.
Shh, hush, dear one. It’s all going to be okay.
The hush proclaimed by so many faithful folks tonight is about just that, sweet girl. All the wails and hurts and whimpers of brokeness that we see in all the cracks
in our hearts and our days and our cities
are met with one mighty Hush.
Dear one, every little thing is being made new.
We’ll sing that over you.
If you hear us sing tonight, it’s okay to wonder at the songs.
Sorrow and love flow mingled down. Like the tears on our cheeks that splash on your tiny hands,
that flow means that something is happening in our hearts.
Love so amazing, so divine. Demands my soul, my life, my all.
That sounds about right. Love like this changes everything.
That’s the good about today. Love changes everything, turns everything around. Your tiny face demands it all.
Your arrival into this world is a page turned, a new song ringing out, a tiny tinkling bell telling the world that there is wonder in our midst. Again. And unlike any other. We can’t wait to see the wonder that you bring.
Your smiles, your songs, your own little flare.
With tiny little spots of wonder we remember that the world is not all done, after all. There is new life. The after all is that wondrous love is here. With us. New life is just waiting to be brought home, nurtured and given the chance to sing.
We are glad you are here.
Today is Good Friday indeed.
CREATIVE PRACTICE:
The picture above is from our family’s “Holy Week Box.” Our church provided this simple collection of items for a child to hold, touch, and move around to experience the story of Jesus. This practice, a lot like Godly play, has been a gift this week. We began our morning forming a cross, then folding the piece of cloth across the wooden “Christ” figure. Holding parts of the story in our hands was meaningful for us as parents as much as for our child. Think of a part of the Jesus story that has always intrigued you and inspired you to wonder. As you read the story, perhaps this one, stop and give yourself space to wonder. What do you wonder about as you experience the story?
One journey of wonder about Jesus that I have always appreciated is this song, Jesus in New Orleans. Have a listen.
