“Lord let me walk that lonely road with you under the weight of the wood.” That haunting song is one that I sing to myself often on Good Friday as it helps me focus upon the Lord’s passion and death — a passion and death that was made necessary because of the sins of those in the world, including me. It is sad, unbearably so at times, to think that my sins put the Lord on that cross. Yet Jesus suffered and died willingly because He loved us so much.
This afternoon we remembered that passion and death at the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, a service that is part scripture, part veneration of the cross, and part the reception of Holy Communion. This evening, we had a Tenebrae prayer service where we focused upon the Lord being sealed in the tomb.
“It is finished.” Certainly that would have been thought of many people. Some, those who plotted against the Lord probably thought “it is finished” as they finally had the chance to do away with Him. Others, those who loved the Lord, must’ve thought “it is finished” as their hopes of having the Messiah in their midst vanished with Jesus’ death.
Yes, it is finished. For tonight. But tomorrow? Ah, what glories await us. It will not be finished. It will just have begun!