What Makes This Friday "Good"?
When all of our own hopes have died, we still have this faith that
seeks nothing for itself--not wisdom, not spiritual power, not
rescue from suffering. "Success" is not in its vocabulary. This faith
seeks nothing but God, to whom it is willing to surrender everything--up
to and including its own cherished beliefs about who God is and how
God should act. This faith is willing to sell all that it owns and
bet the farm on one chance for union with God. If God plays hard
to get, then this faith will never stop its wooing.
Purged of all illusion, weaned from everything that is not God,
this relentless faith will devote itself to doing justice and loving
mercy no matter what the consequences are, and if the consequences
turn out to be a cross, then this faith will hang there for however
long is necessary, asking God to be present, asking God to speak,
regardless of whether or not God chooses to answer. This kind of
faith, embodied by Jesus, is what makes him the Christ--God's own
Being of Light, God's own Anointed One--whose self-annihilating
love for us and for all creation is never more vivid than it is on
this day.

--from "My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?"
by The Rev. Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor

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