Writing to God: Good Friday

Mark 15: 1-47
"Darkness over the Land"

Today's prayer is one of hopelessness and anguish.  All over the world today, Good Friday is more than just a horrible thing of the past - it is reality.  As we remember and mourn the death of Jesus, let us also remember and mourn the lost, the forgotten, the voiceless, the vulnerable, the lives that we know and the ones we will never know who have lost hope that this life, at its heart, is good.
_____________

The darkness feels suffocating.  God, it is hard to breathe.  It is though all hope, all possibility, every potential for good was just sucked up in a vacuum of despair.

Jesus died and still children go hungry.
Jesus died and war did not cease.
Jesus died and the rules of love and respect tightened around the rules of the privileged and powerful.

Jesus breathed his last and when he did, thousands more were forgotten.  Prayers of hope no longer whispered in the morning.

Why, God?  What now?

Where is your kingdom when acts of violence dominate our world?
Where is your saving grace when all we see is news reports of destruction, hypocrisy, fear, injustice?

Jesus died and children go hungry.
Jesus died and animals are abused.
Jesus died and the kid at school is bullied.
Jesus died and the numbers on death row increase; the fear of dark streets at night follow us into daylight.

The experience of loss and death causes us to cry out to you, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?!"

Jesus.

Don't.  Breathe.  Your.  Last.

O, God, tear open our hearts and stay with your children today.

Weep with us as we collapse at the foot of the cross.  If we are there at all.

Amen.