#131 - The Most Uncomfortable Day in Christianity {Reflections}

We’re wired to love winners, which makes Holy Week oddly uncomfortable. Easter Sunday is bright and obvious, but Good Friday is slow, humiliating, and hard to look at. That’s exactly why we need it. I talk about why I used to avoid crucifixes, why an empty cross can feel easier, and why the Christian story insists that resurrection hope comes through the cross, not around it.

A trip to Assisi and the story of Saint Francis praying before the Cross of San Damiano reshaped how I see Jesus’ suffering. That crucifix became more than religious art for me; it became a reminder that God’s victory is revealed in what looks like defeat. Drawing on Martin Luther’s theology of the cross and the idea of the “hidden God,” we explore how God can appear absent in pain while being most present, meeting us with real solidarity in loneliness, grief, and brokenness.

We also get practical about Christian discipleship during Holy Week: not seeking suffering, but refusing to deny it, letting go of self control and self reliance, and learning to trust God when things feel lost. If you’ve been rushing to the “happy ending,” consider this an invitation to slow down, sit with Good Friday, and discover what kind of hope can actually raise the dead.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find these Holy Week reflections. What helps you stay present to Good Friday instead of skipping ahead?

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Transcript

Welcome And Holy Week

SPEAKER_00 0:16

What is up everybody? Hey, this is Brian and welcome to our Reflections podcast. And it is Holy Week, depending on when you're listening to this. It's Holy Week where I am. Maybe you're traveling back in time with me, but either way, uh it's Holy Week, which means that you know Thursday is there's all these events that kind of led up to the crucifixion and the death and resurrection of Jesus. Thursday was what they call Maundy Thursday. Friday was, of course, Good Friday when Jesus dies, and then Sunday, which is really the beginning of the next week, but it's resurrection or Easter Sunday. And uh it rem it always reminds me uh this week to slow down um and not jump too quick to Easter. I mean, I love Easter. Who doesn't love Easter? Easter is like the day when it was very obvious that we had won and that Jesus had won. It was like the the bright and shining moment. And and I think there's a part of me that resonates so deeply with that because, man, I love a winner. Look, most of us are the same. We love winners. Nobody likes a loser. No one wants to be on a losing team or root for a losing team. I'm gonna be honest with you, my Colorado Rockies are having another abysmal season. And I live in Minnesota now, and the twins, who are normally a fun team to watch, they're having an abysmal season. It's terrible. Olivia's over here nodding her head. She's a big fan. And it's it's tough to watch a losing team. We don't like losers. And I don't know if that's in baked, like sort of baked into the cake of what it means to be a human or in our sort of American psyche, you know, because we're like this underdog ragtag country that has sort of become this, you know, massive empire. And we love winners. And Good Friday, which we call it good, it's sort of ironic, but Friday, Jesus dies, and he dies in this humiliating, like godforsaken way. It's awful. It's so bad, everybody that's close to him takes off running and hides. Almost everyone. Uh Peter betrays him, Judas had already betrayed him. Everyone else is running and hiding for their lives because they know if their rabbi gets killed, they're next. And they all run and hide. They've lost. And we don't like losers. So I've noticed that most people want to jump right to Easter Sunday. For example, we Protestants, we we when we Protestants uh, you know, have our symbols up, we love the symbol of the empty cross. We don't like crucifixes. I've never wanted to hang a crucifix in my office or anywhere. A crucifix is like the cross, but with Jesus hanging on it. Because it's like a symbol of him dying, which is a bit macabre anyway. But it's also like I don't want to have a loser hanging on my wall. But that changed for me uh many years ago. I was actually out in Assisi, Italy, and this guy named Saint Francis, who is like this incredible uh young man, he's at this cross, a crucifix in this town of Assisi, in a church called San Damiano, and he's staring at this crucifix, and he begins to have like this incredible awakening to Jesus, and it changes his life. So now when you go to Assisi, I was there a couple years ago. When you go there, this cross, it's called the cross of San Damiano, they have them like recreations or or like replicas of them all over. You can buy them in these little kitschy touristy stores, and I'm like, God, I'm not buying, I'm not getting one of those. But when I was there, I was so moved by this story. You can Google it and hear more, but I grabbed one and I brought it home. And it's the first crucifix I've ever hung on my wall because I want to be reminded that the victory of God, the resurrection of Jesus, only comes about through the death of Jesus and what Jürgen Multmann calls the death of God. It's actually Jesus' strength. This is what Luther believed as well. I love it. In his weakness, God reveals himself. On the cross, while he's dying, this humiliating Godforsaken way, God reveals himself not in strength, but in weakness. It's on the cross we find Jesus suffering and dying, and it's there that the glory of God is revealed, Luther thought. And uh, and so I have this hanging on my wall now, and I absolutely love it because it reminds me of what happened on Good Friday. And for Luther, the cross reverses all of our expectations because it seems like Jesus is losing, but it's not, it's actually a victory on the cross. And God's deepest revelation is not in triumph, but in a dying man in this incredibly embarrassing, Godforsaken way. And Luther says that the cross tells us the truth about us as well. That like we're not always up and to the right, you know, just basically improving and good and we're getting better, and we're just, you know, we're gonna pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and we're every day is better, and we're just gonna get the next self-help book, and our 401ks are doing just fine. No, like that the reality is that, man, you and I sometimes have a hard time getting out of our own way. That left to our own devices, we will tend to wander off the path. That many parts of me still need healing. They're broken. I'm I've got sin, and there's I just can't, I'm not able to manage my own life sometimes, and I certainly can't save myself. And the cross sort of calls the thing what it is. It sort of strips away illusions of self-righteousness and grandeur and and triumph. And it and it shows us how God saves us, that God saves us not through sort of uh my good works or me accomplishing these wonderful things, not by my own effort, but it saves us in my weakness and my brokenness and through just like yeah, saying yes to that, you know what I mean? And the cross also shows us that like God is hidden in the suffering. Luther calls it the hidden God, that on the cross, God appears absent, but it's actually there that God is maybe most present. And uh and God knows what it's like. Uh God experiences experiences in a very real, tangible, metaphysical way, solidarity with our suffering and our pain and our loneliness and our brokenness and our lostness, that God knows what that's like. And in no other religion that I know of does do we speak of the God suffering alongside of the humans in this way, like a human as a human. And um, yeah, uh God flips the script in this way. God is found in the suffering, which is beautiful and also a bit horrifying. And uh this means in that when we're called to take up our cross and follow Jesus, that the Christian life looks like the cross, to mirror the cross, that we're to embrace humility over self-glory and trusting God even in our suffering. Yes, of course, knowing that Sunday will come, that the resurrection, a new day has dawned in Jesus. Yes, of course. But it's also like that there's this death that has to take place, that we have to let go, die before we die. Uh let go of self-control, self-reliance, you know, my own kind of up and to the right obsession. And uh, not seeking suffering, but like recognizing that God meets us there and that that's the victory of God on the cross. When things seem lost, that's the victory of God. And so I just want to encourage you this week, like don't rush too quickly through Good Friday to get to the resurrection. You know, maybe find a crucifix and just stare at it and recognize that that's the glory of God revealed on the cross. When all things looked lost, that's where God is found. Not necessarily in our triumphs, but in our weakness and in our brokenness. And that's where you can find God today. And that you and I still need a God who can raise the dead. Yeah, so uh listen, I hope you have a wonderful holy week. That you can take some time and slow down and reflect on the work of God in the world. And on Friday, that you can remember that when all things seemed lost, it's there that we can uh find God. So and then, of course, on Sunday, a new world has dawned in Jesus. The uh this new world that God has promised to make all things new again uh and is doing so and has started it, initiated it in Jesus. So all right. Happy Holy Week, and of course, happy Resurrection Sunday. Love you guys. Peace. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8 30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriver.org. Peace.