A Reflection from the Fuel Daily Readings App from Good Friday 2021. Click here to read the reading.

In Coptic Orthodox tradition, the day after Good Friday is the funeral. They fast the whole day, contemplating the tomb of Christ and it ends with mournful feasting. They feast because Jesus died for us and that’s awesome, but they are sad because well. He died.

Such bittersweet melancholic glory.
Just like our favourite love songs are stained with ache and grief, this salvation story cuts and grapples at the tendons of our hearts, rips it out and leaves a cavity.

Jesus died.
Just ponder that in your heart for a second.
He died.
Listen to your heartbeat. Put your fingers on the outside of your wrist and palpate your pulse.
His stopped.
Suck in some air, fill your lungs and appreciate them expanding.
His deflated.

In that last moment, after He cried out His last, He was as much a man as any other. A flesh and bone human dying for another human.
That other human is you.

And the saddest thing, is that Jesus is literally dying for you to acknowledge Him today. This day goes by every year, we always let it pass. We move on to the chocolate eggs or grab for the thing we gave up this Lent. But don’t let it go past this time. There is nothing more real than the truth that His heart stopped beating this day, 2018 years ago, so that ours wouldn’t have to.

And it doesn’t start again until He’s saved us first.

+ Jesus when You died, You tore the veil between God and human, so You could come closer than the air that sticks to my skin. In return, help me tear my heart just enough for You to enter. Let my heartbreak a little bit for the love You’ve shown me on the cross so that it might join Your broken body as it rises in the night to make all things new. Amen.