Where are We Standing—Good Friday

Where Are We Standing

—and What Are We Looking at

This Weekend?

This weekend is a paradox.

It is a celebration of sacred ritual,

a reflection on tradition,

a clinging to what we believe keeps us safe:

our liturgies, our symbols, our stories.

We believe these things protect us.

We believe in them—

but belief is not always enough.

Because even in the midst of our celebrations,

Truth breaks in.

Not the comforting truth that reassures,

but the disruptive truth that demands something of us:

accountability, surrender, the courage to act.

And what do we do?

Even wrapped in the garments of piety,

we run.

We hide.

We fear being seen for who we really are.

We fear being recognized—

and having to pay the price

for resisting oppression,

for standing against empire,

for lifting our voices for the crushed and forgotten.

Some of us go so far

as to deny what we know in our bones to be true.

We pretend we do not believe.

We turn our backs on what we once held sacred.

We betray friends, family,

even our own integrity,

in the name of self-preservation.

And still—

Jesus stands.

Jesus, the manifestation of the Divine among us,

did what we could not do.

He stood in the face of power—

Rome with its legions and taxes,

religious leaders with their laws and fears—

and declared their might to be nothing more than dust.

Their control, their wealth,

their manipulation of worship and meaning—

he stripped it bare.

He exposed the empire for what it was:

a machine that called tribute holy,

called domination divine,

called the crushing of souls a sacred duty.

Jesus stood alone,

and told the truth.

And now the question comes to us:

Will we stand?

Will we show our faces?

Will we walk into the cave of death,

believing in the promise of life?

All is not lost.

The Divine is still among us.

Not as a lamb slain to satisfy wrath—

but as a witness.

A martyr.

A truth-teller.

One who stood, who died,

not to appease God

but to reveal the lie:

that empire is eternal.

That power cannot be challenged.

That we must remain silent, afraid, or dead.

But we are not dead.

We are called to rise.

We are called to stand.

Because he did.