April 3, 2026
GOOD FRIDAY REFLECTION
(shared at our Good Friday service with Lamb of God Missionary Baptist Church)
“Memory produces hope in the way that amnesia produces despair.”
Walter Brueggeman, Biblical scholar
“Hope is only the beginning, it's not a substitute for action but a basis for it.”
Rebecca Solnit, Journalist
Remembering → Reimagining → Action
Good Friday is the ultimate moment of hope in our faith tradition.
Jesus has been sentenced to death and is on the cross. In this moment, hope should be extinguished. This should communicate that the cruelty, division and rancor of the world will always win.
And yet, we know that love wins.
In a few days, the stone in front of the tomb will be rolled away. Jesus rises again to send the message: he will always be with us and present throughout our lives.
Consider all of the aspects of our lives which try to crush hope:
Massive political divisions splitting friends and families;
Governments wantonly imprisoning people. In WI, the board president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee was detained by ICE four days ago. This is cruel arrogance, abuse of power and injustice;
Technology which we were told would build community, atomizes us and tears us apart; and
Spiritual teachers are obsessed with power and wealth, instead of a vision of a more just world.
And in this moment, I see the cross more clearly. This is Jesus living love when hope should be gone.
Jesus remembers by living into his heritage of the law and the prophets. Jesus reimagines the law and prophets with a radical love beyond the imagination of those around him. He moves this love into action.
When all seems lost, Jesus, both human and divine, transcends death through this radical love.
Executed on Good Friday, Jesus rises again two days later and sparks his followers to build a movement grounded in this love. And Jesus is present with us in our day to day lives through the gift of the spirit.
We live in the gravest of moments. We are at war, families are hurting because of persecution and economic challenges. This is the time to gather together, to remember Jesus' story, to imagine how we can live together in new and beautiful ways and to live out this radical love in the homes and the streets of southeastern Wisconsin. Our presence here together in this church basement is a manifestation of hope. It is the basis of action.
Your faith in me was blinding
Yours is the song that I've always sung
You are not lost out there because
You are not alone
If you have a chance to reach
Reach for me
In the chaos of the earth
We'll find beauty
U2, Yours Eternally