In the garden, sadness came over him
and great distress. If only the cup would pass.
How often like Jesus is our own life,
when we feel like him, and pray like him,
asking for our trials to pass, asking
not to be put to the test.
But is he not walking with us?
Good Friday is where people are in pain,
where injustice thrives, where love is absent,
where politics become corrupt, the poor abused
and where people are crucified.
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
What happened then is history and beyond history:
his burial robe folded in the empty tomb,
the women who were first witnesses terrified.
Jesus was seen alive, touched, heard,
saying ‘peace be with you, do not be afraid’,
Jesus, the person whom they knew, transformed.
The marks of his crucifixion remained
on his limbs, his side, his forehead.
This is what is in store for his faithful ones,
all changed, transformed, the worst and the best
that life can do to us taken up, and honoured
with Christ’s Easter rising in us.