God, the Holy Trinity, suffered three-fold. Each suffering was unique. Each suffering was a kind of death. Each suffering paid the price to liberate a captive and hostile world.
Good Friday Meditation: Community Bears Suffering Together
Yet this Good Friday meditation is not merely a downer: there’s a lesson in the revelation. Community bears suffering together. In perfect community our sufferings are shared. Perhaps these sufferings are not lessened, but we are not alone even as the Father, Son, and Spirit are never alone.
God, who is sweet community in himself, divides the suffering. He spread his suffering among himself: Father, Son, and Spirit. His empathy is great because he understands the grieving mother and the abandoned child. He has lived their lives.
A Good Friday Meditation – One More Lesson
His divine community offers at least one more lesson: community multiplies joy. Whatever is good and true and filled with life becomes common property. This is the math of heaven: suffering is divided; joy is multiplied.
Jesus offered not only cleansing and redemption. He extended his hand and said, “Enter into the Master’s joy.” All that heaven holds dear becomes ours, and all our sorrows are born by the great cloud of witnesses, chief among them the High King of Heaven.
This Good Friday meditation originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
