So, it was a challenge to my thought patterns when a professor some years unpacked the significance of the Good Friday liturgy for his students. Dying power, he said, was the special grace and gift of Good Friday. Dying power, the ability to embrace pain and suffering, and that final act of life that will come inevitably to every one of us. I have thought of this often over the years, as I have had to deal with pain in my own life and in the lives of others. That same professor would speak eloquently about how suffering and pain brings us to the threshold of the beyond, to that place in human experience that puts us at the door of God s presence, allowing us a glimpse of the life of God s own Spirit.
T here is something special about people who have suffered deeply.
Not that anyone should look for it or cause pain for the sake of pain itself. Life has a way of bringing it into our lives at some point or other. What is remarkable to me is how courageous and strong people can be in the face of suffering and death. I have seen young and old embrace the cross and in that embrace, find strength and incomparable goodness. O ne of the hymns that has become part of my Good Friday experience is titled, Embrace the Cross.