True friendship is something very precious - something we seek and do not always find. And when we find it, we yearn to keep it. A friend is someone with whom we can share our joys and our sorrows, someone in whom we can confide the deepest secrets of our heart, to whom we can go in our need, and who will respond.
In Jesus, God offers us a true friend. Not to supplant our existing friends, but to fill the gaps where our existing friends fall short. In a sinful and less than perfect world, this is important. The friends we talk to, the friends we live with (and if our spouses, our parents or our children are not our friends, we are even more poorly off!), our neighbours in church, in house group, at work, can share many of our joys and our sorrows, but not all.
Two short months ago, in the depth of winter, we heard the "tidings of comfort and joy" of Jesus' birth. Now, as spring approaches, we prepare to meet the same Jesus as "the man of sorrows" (Is. 53:3). Lent and Holy Week are a time to reflect on those sorrows, and to share our own sorrows with him.
Jesus' death, deliberate, slow and painful, was God's way of taking over our own sorrows. Good friends can bear one another's burdens, but in the last analysis, the burdens of humanity are so heavy that they need to be dropped completely - we need a fresh start. But only the sinless can start again - for the rest of us, the sacrifice involved in giving up our old ways is too high a price. Calvary shows us just how high a price that is.
A high price indeed, but an even higher reward! In the words of one Easter hymn, Jesus lives! Henceforth is death but the gate to life immortal. Jesus compares his own death to the pains of giving birth. "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world. So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you." (John 16:20-22).
We share our joys and sorrows with our human friends in many ways - by word, by sign, by touch, by just being there. God, too, is "just there", and we can share our joys and sorrows in thought and in prayer.
In worship, too, we can share our sadness and our joy. Wherever Christians come together (and that includes just two over a meal, or thousands at a praise service) God is there. And especially when in worship we recall Jesus' final supper with his disciples, and bring again to mind this fresh start, this new beginning, proclaiming in bread and wine the Lord's death "until he comes." (1 Cor 11:26).
Lent is a time to look closely at ourselves, and especially at our sorrows. Holy Week is a time to share these by reflecting on Jesus' sorrows. Through these, we can look forward to Easter, and the assurance that God really will "see us again." For "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Cor 15:22)
HD