Learning to Hand Over Our Spirit: a Good Friday Reflection

As we enter into the account of Christ’s Passion in the Gospel of John, we see Jesus suffer in deeply painful ways, and yet we call this day “good.” How can that be?

The suffering Jesus endures certainly doesn’t seem good. The choices people make on this day are some of the worst of what people can do – violations and violence, betrayal, desertion. And yet, Jesus perseveres to the end. Just before he “hands over his spirit,” Jesus says, “It is finished.” He has done what he came to do, and now it’s in God’s hands. Of course, we know this is not the end of the story, and whether he’s aware of that or not, Jesus hands over his spirit in love and trust.

There are plenty of painful things that happen in our lives too – terrible losses, illnesses that show us are frailty and that of our loved ones, warfare, violence, bigotry, and hatred. We, like Jesus, suffer deeply. In all this pain and heartache, where is God? In the face of great suffering, it can feel like God is absent. 

However, I do believe that, whether we feel God with us or not, God is there. Sometimes in my deepest heartbreaks I do sense God with me, and even though it doesn’t take away the pain, it is a comfort. At other times, I don’t feel God’s presence, and that hurts even more. Later, though, in the cool, clear light of hindsight, I can see how God was, in fact, with me. God is there whether I feel it or not, but a felt sense of God’s love sure helps!

I’m a Sister of Divine Providence, and my community’s spirituality calls us to abandon ourselves to God’s providence, which means entrusting our whole lives to God’s care. We trust God, not because we think God will protect us from suffering, but because we know God is with us in our suffering. God is with us in our joy, too, and in all the circumstances of our lives. The Paschal Mystery, which we enter so deeply over these holy days, can be a mirror for our own suffering and joy, dying and rising. If we can see God present in Jesus’s dying and rising, we can trust God’s presence in our daily deaths and resurrections too. Maybe, as we witness Jesus’s total trust in God, we too can surrender to God’s love. Maybe we too can “hand over our spirit” to God in love and trust, not just at the moment of our death, but as we live too, every moment of every day.

God was certainly with Jesus on this hard day; in every moment of his suffering, God was present. God’s love for all of us is good in the fullest sense of the word.

Blessed Good Friday.