Becoming Freer Than Our Circumstances Allow

Today is Good Friday. It is, perhaps, the most somber day of our church calendar. It is the day that highlights all of our shattered dreams and expectations. The world we thought we’d be living in is gone. The person we thought we might be is no longer.

In a prior blog post, I wrote, “I find it helpful sometimes to “forget” that I know the ending of the Christian story (Easter Sunday) and just focus on this day.  The community of Jesus witnessed him being taken away, and for the most part they all abandon him.  They watch from a distance as he is beaten and dragged through the streets – ultimately being killed by the state as a criminal. His good friends left him when he needed them the most and one even betrayed him for money or out of anger.

On Good Friday, there are no easy answers.  Just like there is no quick fix. No certainty. No resolution and no solace. No one comes to the rescue and there is nothing to really comfort us.  There is a rawness and harshness to this day that, sadly, many around this world bear most days.”

It is meant to be a day that brings our attention back to the pain and the grief, and this is not always an easy thing to do.

I also think that it is important to mention that while Jesus died on Good Friday, this was not some form of “punishment” by God. And, personally, I also struggle with the idea that his death was some form of atonement. I realize that there is a lot of theology that I grew up with that suggests that Jesus needed to die for our sins, and that many people still hold that view. And while I understand that theology, it certainly leaves me with so many questions about who God is and what God really wants from us. I have written more about this in the past if you want to check it out here.

In recent years, I have been thinking more about Jesus not stopping the course of love – even in the face of suffering. He willingly chose to keep going forward even though he could have stopped at any point. 

But God did not demand this of him to collect on a debt. No, Jesus did this because his life mirrored God’s life, and God’s life embodies a willingness to go to any length for love. It is a willingness to overcome all things with love. 

So even in the face of rejection, Jesus chose to keep loving.
Even in the face of taunting and threats, Jesus chose to keep loving.
Even in the face of false accusations, Jesus chose to keep loving.
Even in the face of a wrongful conviction, Jesus chose to keep loving.
Even in the face of abandonment, Jesus chose to keep loving.
And, ultimately, even in the face of suffering and death, Jesus chose to keep loving.

I recently was able to attend a workshop for mental health clinicians with world-renowned teacher and clinician, Dr. Joy DeGruy. Dr. Joy is quite famous for her book called Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome and is a very compelling speaker. The tag line of Dr. Joy’s work is “be the healing.”

At our recent workshop, she was talking about what we do when we encounter what she called “unhealed behavior.” Simply defined, this might be people behaving poorly, disrespectfully, or even harmfully. It is behavior that emerges when one feels threatened by the success of another, makes everything about ourselves and tries to make others feel smaller. It is behavior that comes from our unhealed parts and past wounds, and it is EVERYWHERE!

Just pick up the newspaper or read the feed from your social media stream. Our world is drowning in unhealed behavior.

But Dr. Joy said something the other day that stopped me in my tracks. She said, “We must use healed behavior when we encounter unhealed behavior. Healing behavior means leaning in and trying to help the other heal.”

We must use healed behavior when we encounter unhealed behavior.

My eyes welled up as I heard her say this because I thought to myself, “That is Good Friday.” On this day, Jesus confronts all of the unhealed behavior of the world – epitomized in his death as a criminal and enemy of the state – and meets it with the healed behavior of love and forgiveness. He leans in to the unhealed brokenness of the world and chooses not to respond in kind.

He offers us a way out of the cycle – individually and collectively – and does not belittle or shame humanity for being unhealed. If there is a salvation in the wood of the cross, this is the salvation I see – that we no longer have to stay stuck in a cycle tha had bound humanity for so long. Instead he offers us “healing behavior” and says words that ring so true in my life, “they know not what they do.”

When we act out of unhealed places, we do not know what we’re doing, and in those moments we are likely to perpetuate what Resmaa Menakem calls “dirty pain.” This is the pain that we project outward and force into others lives. It is pain that is scape-goated, denied and projected. It is pain that ultimately becomes hate and violence.

Like so many days in our Lenten journey, Good Friday is a time of introspection and connection. It is a time for us to take stock of all of the dirty pain and all of the unhealed behaviors – in the world and in our lives – and to just sit with them without expecting a quick fix. 

Episcopalian priest and spiritual director, Adam Bucko, says that Good Friday asks a lot from us and invites a re-evaluation of our lives. It asks us to look at the world and wonder, “How much of this have we participated  in and consented to? How much of this is done in our names? Are we ready to commit to change?”

And the goal is not to “get through” Good Friday only to return to business as usual and normalcy. Good Friday is supposed to transform us.

Can we let the circumstances of our life and our current reality work on us and, as he says, squeeze “out all that is not essential, and make space in us for God.” Can we “abandon ourselves into God’s hands” and “pray and weep and fast until we can honestly and truly say, ‘Not my will but your will,’ as Jesus said…from the cross.”

Bucko says that “the moment our hearts have the courage and readiness to pronounce those words, there will be very little left of us…[and we will have] the opportunity to become more beautiful than we dare to be, and freer than our circumstances allow.”

May it be so.