Today is Good Friday. It’s the dark day of death before the resurrection at dawn on the third day. There’s little good about it, as much as we make a case for its necessity. We can make the argument that it’s good, but it’s still a day of death most brutal. It’d the day they crucified my Lord.

O God, be merciful to me.

It’s gray and dreary today. Windy and cold, spitting rain, threatening darkness. Everyone is asleep in the afternoon. Napping. What else can you do? As days off go, Good Friday isn’t one to celebrate with loud acclaim. It’s one to be mourned.

Father, don’t stop prayin’. For this old world is almost done.

Good Friday is about waiting. Waiting for Sunday to come. Waiting for hope to break through. Waiting for light to shine. Always waiting. Humanity is plunged into the dark night of the soul, with nothing to do but wait. I grow so tired of the waiting. I want to plunge forward with reckless abandon, but it’s not in my power to do. I can only wait.

We nailed him on to a tree, but he never said a mumblin’ word. Not a word, not a word, not a word.

Good Friday is a paradox. Thankfully it escaped the Hallmark treatment. The Easter bunny and the eggs have left it alone, for what could you even do with it? This year it coincides with Earth Day, fitting to some and awful to others, but there it is.

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on; And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on and joyful be.

It’s a day of quiet contemplation, a day to ponder these things that I’ve done. We are scattered and lost and in such desperate need of that Sunday morning. When will it come? When will it come? Christmas has the child-like expectation, but for Easter it’s something more. Something deeper. Something urgent.

Like a wayward child I’ve wandered… I have wandered in the darkness, and my path was lone and drear. But my Father did not leave me, he was watching ever near. Lord I’m coming home, Lord I’m coming home.

It’s supposed to be 60 degrees again on Easter—a return of Spring.