Good Friday
Jared Siebert serves in many capacities in the Canadian Church. He founded an organization of missionary church leaders called the New Leaf Network and is one of Canada’s leading inter-denominational church planter trainers. But church planting isn’t the only kind of experience he has garnered. In his ministry roles Jared has had the opportunity to work with churches of all kinds from all over Canada. He has acted as a consultant in churches large and small, urban and rural, and new and long established. He has written a discipleship curriculum, a handbook on church planter training, and a Church Health workbook called the LifePlan. As a sought after speaker and consultant Jared is uniquely able to draw insight and inspiration from a variety of sources and bring that to the table as he helps churches move toward unity and the mission of God.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Isaiah 53:7-9
As I sit here with you in the uneasy silence of Good Friday I am struck again by the picture of the suffering servant in the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 52:13-53:12). Christians, from the earliest days, know these words prophesy about Jesus. The servant’s lack of political connections or natural graces to draw people in. The inexplicable way the servant’s suffering sets us free. And of course the grotesque double entendre of the suffering servant being “lifted high.” Why is this the way we are healed? Why does our healing require suffering?
And yet there it is. This is the way. These words lay bare the insane cruelty of human communities. Over and over again our lives together cause the suffering of the weak and the inconvenient. The gears of our systems and lives don’t even spare the innocent suffering servant. These diabolical mechanisms lead to the desolation of communities and ecosystems. To the despoiling of the earth. All the while the powerful and connected work the levers and extract power and profit.
These realities had long been known in Isaiah’s day. Many prophets before and after Isaiah have pointed this gruesome reality out to the people of God. At the time of this writing the people of God were already exhausted by it. They had had enough. They longed for rescue. They wondered who even had the strength to protest any longer. They also dared to hope in the work of God in the world through the suffering servant. Deep down they knew it would heal them. Somehow.
Sadly, the machine would grind on for centuries after these words were recorded. The cast of characters changing from time to time but the plot staying essentially the same. The strong and powerful ascend. The people suffer.
Today as we observe Good Friday, let's not be too quick to jump to Sunday. Receive the gifts that this holy day has to offer. Allow it to work. It can open your heart and mind to the people around you who suffer in ways you don’t understand or imagine.
Pause for a moment and live inside the heart of this holy day.
Join the world in its mourning and longing.
Sit with people for whom justice is delayed and therefore denied.
Wonder along with Isaiah “is anyone planning to mount a convincing protest?”
Who is going to shut this infernal machine off?
Sit with the disciples as they watch in horror as the best and brightest chance they had at freedom was ground up in the gruesome gears of a broken world.
If you can’t relate directly then at least allow their despair and confusion, as they fled and hid, to till the soil of your comfortable life. Let it make deep scars.
Because this is the ground that resurrection springs from.
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Read more posts for Lent
I am maybe seven years old. It is summertime on the farm. One of our cats, a tabby named Charity,* has just given birth to kittens. When I discover them in the barn, I am beside myself with delight and wonder. I crouch down and gaze upon the five furry little miracles wriggling in the straw. I soon notice that one of them is smaller than the others. A lot smaller…
In the spring, I’m a rugby coach. I’m also a lot of other things, but in the spring, I live in my rugby sweatshirt. I love the smell of the earth—the dirt softening and giving way to grass. I love that it is a sport that draws together an eclectic group of players, a few who are naturally athletic or have played other sports, but also many for whom this is it, a hodgepodge of misfits finding a place to belong…
I recently attended my first “Forest Church” service. The conservation area where it was hosted was one of the most beautiful sanctuaries I have ever gathered in. The snow was melting, and the creek was rushing with its runoff, creating a background rhythm, which was joined by a gentle breeze whistling through the trees and accompanied by a choir of birds singing their choruses…
Kids are chasing each other around, ‘sword fighting’ with the cedar branches that we just handed them. I try to corral these little warriors, seeking to control that which simply won’t be controlled. Sigh. This is how our church’s Palm Sunday ‘processional’ begins…
Like many others have expressed in their reflections, the Lenten season has a special place in my being. It coincides nicely with the darkest time of the year, during which I often find myself heavily stressed and depressed. Every year, old wounds and new wounds find themselves out in the open, and God invites me on another journey towards healing…
In 2017, I lost two grandparents within months of each other. With my 嫲嫲 (paternal grandmother), the news was not unexpected. She had been ill for quite some time, slowly deteriorating in the hospital…
I am writing during a Sabbatical pause from work and ministry,
And this is a dangerous place.
I’ve been thinking and reflecting and longing and feeling a LOT lately…
For the past few years, I have slowly been making my way through Robert Alter’s translation (with commentary) of the Hebrew Bible, and it just so happened that I began the book of Job in mid-January. Job can be a difficult book for many reasons, but, somewhat surprisingly, I have found the Job poet’s words to be particularly relevant and meaningful as I journey through Lent this year…
Over the years, the story of Jesus washing his disciple’s feet has captivated my imagination. A few years ago, Jesus’ response (“Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”) to Peter’s declaration that Jesus would NEVER wash his feet caught my attention as I pondered what it means to be willing to receive…
What do you want to do with your one and only life?
Be your true, authentic self!
Live from the centre of who you truly are!
These kinds of over-sized enthusiastic questions and maxims are what greet people like me who live in the liminal space of trying to decide what to do next…
Lent is a season of preparation and a time to remember Jesus’ journey to Golgotha so that we can celebrate Jesus’ resurrection with great joy. I observed a fast and other spiritual disciplines during Lent for many years. Yet, I’ve struggled to find a meaningful Lenten practice to observe this year…
The early years of my spiritual formation happened in a large Evangelical Pentecostal church in the little city of Guelph, Ontario. During the 90s, Lent was not a season that we spoke about or practiced in our faith tradition. We certainly wished no ill will towards our mainline brothers and sisters, but I always had the impression that we were at best suspicious…
I woke up this morning with the weight of the world on my chest. I have learned to listen with compassion to these weights, but this morning, the weight is mysterious. I can’t quite point to one cause…
That little whisper in my ear or a feeling in my gut that says there is not enough to go around. I need to fight for my share. My fear that something that can’t be healed will happen to my kids. My tendency to overestimate and project far into the future the negative consequence of one small action (or inaction). These are the ways that the accuser uses temptations in my life…
“Each morning comes along and you assume it will be similar enough to the previous one – that you will be safe, that your family will be alive, that you will be together, that life will remain mostly as it was.”
That’s from Cloud Cuckoo Land, American author Anthony Doerr’s new book.
“Then a moment arrives and everything changes” (64).
In Cloud Cuckoo Land, the world ends roughly five times…
I’m yanking persistent weeds through the black shroud covering last summer’s flower beds. It’s Good Friday. Steve, who has only 15 days left to live, is sitting in the sun keeping me company – that simple act of marriage – while I weed and muse…