(CNN)Since this piece was published, CNN has learned that the Rev. Bill Shillady’s email to Hillary Clinton, collected in a new book, copies portions of a blog post written by another pastor. For more on that story see here: http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/14/politics/clinton-pastor-plagiarism/index.html
It is Friday, but Sunday is coming. This isn’t the devotional I had expected to write. This isn’t the devotional this day, you want to receive. While Good Friday may be the starkest representation of a Friday that we have, life is full of a lot of Fridays.
For the disciples and Christ’s followers in the first century, Good Friday represented the day that everything fell apart. All was lost. The momentum and expect of a man claiming to be the Son of God, the Messiah who was supposed to change everything, had been implemented.
Even though Jesus told his followers three days after the temple would be restored, they had no idea of what that Sunday would be. They betrayed, denied, mourned, fled and hid. They did just about everything BUT feel great about Friday and their own circumstances.
For us, Friday is the phone call from the doctor that the cancer is back. It is the news that you’ve lost your job. It is a friend’s betrayal, the loss of someone dear. Friday is all hope is lost and the day that it all falls apart. All of us have Fridays. But, as the saying goes, “Sunday’s coming!”
Today, you are experiencing a Friday. Your Friday is exactly what happened in the last few weeks and last night at the loss. However, Sunday is coming!
Jesus finished the excruciating task of giving up his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. It was his faith and belief in his heavenly Father, that gave him peace and the grace to submit to Friday. While death had apparently won, Jesus knew. When he said, “It is finished,” it wasn’t meant to be a statement of concession. It was a declaration that a day was on the way.
Friday is finished. Sunday is coming. Death is going to be shattered. Hope is going to be restored. But we must live through the darkness and seeming hopelessness of Friday.
You know one of my favorite expressions is “God doesn’t close one door without opening another, but it can be hell in the hallway.” My sister Hillary. You, our state is undergoing a Friday. Our hope is that Sunday is coming. However, it may be hell for some time.