Good Friday

Still reading Two Part Invention...
"...any God worth believing in is the God not only of the immensities of the galaxies...but also the God of love who cares about the sufferings of us human beings and is here, with us, for us, in our pain and in our joy."

And then she reflects on these words from Yeats:
But Love has pitched her mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.

"This summer is not the first time I have walked through the place of excrement and found love's mansion there. Indeed, we are more likely to find it in the place of excrement than in sterile places. God comes where there is pain and brokenness, waiting to heal, even if the healing is not the physical one we hope for....It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present."

L'Engle's words mingled with Yeats' are so appropriate for Good Friday, the day when we specifically remember Christ's death. The Incarnation. The Word become flesh. Died on a cross. How can we be surprised by Easter without being surprised that God would let his son die like a criminal?

We know that Good Friday doesn't get the final word. And so, too, our heartaches and trials don't get the final word. But that doesn't mean we can ingnore them or avoid them. They are real, just as Jesus' death was real. But in the midst of them, we might just get to glimpse more of who God is, to understand his presence in new ways, to experience an intimacy that we might otherwise miss.

God has built his mansion in the place of excrement. And that is good news.

It's Friday...but Sunday's coming.