Date: March 28, 2024
Tomorrow is Good Friday. The Seminary will be closed. We will pause and remember the miracle of salvation made possible through the innocent taking of life by empire.
The etymology of Good Friday is the same as Goodbye. Goodbye is a contraction of God be with you; Good Friday is actually God’s Friday. This is the day when we see God hanging on the cross. It is the day where we learn afresh that God is present in the hardest places – in Gaza, Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, and so tragically the list goes on. God is present in our personal journeys of loss and pain. God is right at the heart of our anguish.
Tomorrow is a fast day. I encourage the practice. Take a 12 hour fast from food – so have breakfast, drink liquids, and then break the fast after 12 hours. Feel in a minuscule, small, remote, partial way the ache of the stomach that, tragically and in a life-threatening way, families in the Gaza are navigating. Remember all those who are suffering today in your prayers and pause and mediate on the truth that God is present in the tragic.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and the President of The General Theological Seminary