On Maundy Thursday I blogged about my annual sense that I’m doing Easter wrong. Every year I regret the fact that I can’t hear the story of Good Friday without also hearing the story of Easter Sunday. That I can’t enter into the pain and disorientation in order to fully appreciate the surprise and the joy. That knowing “it’s Friday but Sunday is coming” stops me from really living in that story.
And yet this week I had a sense that I don’t need to try to live in Good Friday because I already do. The last few weeks have brought event after event that have devastated us with anger and fear and sorrow, that have brought us to our knees and left us dazed and confused, that have made the world we hope for seem a little further away. If that doesn’t feel like Good Friday I don’t know what does. And that’s why it’s so important that we do know that Easter Sunday is coming.
Knowing that Easter Sunday happened for Jesus might stop us from living in the first Good Friday. But more importantly it helps us to live in our own Good Friday because it says that Easter Sunday will happen for us too. It is the promise that every story will end in resurrection. It is the hope that suffering can be redeemed, and a world that has seemed strange and cruel can be made more beautiful than before. It is the sign that death and hate will not win.
It seems an inescapable fact that most of my reflections these days come back to my little boy. I have cried many times over the past year for the world I have brought him into. He’s too young to understand any of it yet – the worst thing he knows is cutting a new tooth or being told he can’t chew on my phone charger – but one day he will understand. And when he does, I hope he knows that there is no Good Friday without an Easter Sunday. I hope you know that too.
Revive Leeds 
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