Good Friday Reflection

I have a hard time getting my mind around the meaning of Good Friday and Jesus' death on the cross.  I am rarely satisfied with the idea that Jesus died for me so I can get to heaven.  I believe, it has to be more than that.

So on this day to remember how Jesus died, I found something written by one of my favorite authors Madeleine L'Engle that seems to make better sense of the meaning of today than most:

For Jesus, at-one-ment was not being at-one only with the glory of the stars, or the first daffodil in spring, or a baby’s laugh. He was also at-one with all the pain and suffering that ever was, is, or will be.  On the cross Jesus was at-one with the young boy with cancer, the young mother hemoraging, the raped girl.  And perhaps the most terrible anguish came from being with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, the death chamber at Belsen, the horrors of radiation in the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It came from being at-one with the meglomania of the terrorist, the coldness of heart of "good people", or even the callous arrogance of the two men in criminal court.

We can withdraw, even in our prayers, from the intensity of suffering.  Jesus, on the cross, experienced it all.  When I touch the small cross I wear, that, then, is the meaning of the symbol

Today is a day for remembering the suffering in the world and knowing that God understands and has even experienced it.  The seems like redemption to me.