In the Shadow of the Cross: A Good Friday Reflection

Good Friday invites us into a place we often try to avoid—a place of sorrow, silence, and endings not yet redeemed. We stand in the shadow of the cross, where suffering is not abstract or far away, but heartbreakingly real. It’s a day that doesn’t leap forward to resurrection, but instead honors what hurts. It asks us to pause and reflect: Where do I find myself in the story of suffering?

For some of us, that place is right in the middle of it.

Maybe the betrayal is still fresh. Maybe the grief is raw. You are carrying a cross of your own, and it’s not a theory—it’s real, and it’s heavy. Like Jesus stumbling under the weight of his cross, you may be feeling like you can’t go any further. If this is where you are, I invite you: speak it aloud. Cry out to God—not with pretty words, but with the groans of your soul. Prayer doesn’t always look pretty. Sometimes it’s just a cry from the gut: “Take this cup from me.”

Others of us may find ourselves recovering from suffering.

The worst may be over, but the wounds remain. You’re breathing again, but maybe still afraid to hope. Like the disciples hiding after the crucifixion, you don’t know what comes next. You may feel unmoored—marked by what you’ve lost and unsure of who you are now. In that tender space, reflect: What shifted in me? What part of me survived? What is still healing?

And still others may be anticipating suffering.

You’re standing on the edge of something hard: a looming diagnosis, a goodbye, a decision that you know will cost you something. What do you need in order to face what is coming? Courage? Grace? Community? Even Jesus, in Gethsemane, asked not to have to walk the road he saw ahead. There is no shame in dreading what you fear.

Wherever you are—right in the midst, healing from what was, or bracing for what’s to come—this day is for you.

But Good Friday is not only about locating ourselves in the story of suffering. It also invites us to ask: What must we die to?

The cross wasn’t just an event in the life of Jesus. It was an invitation. An invitation into transformation—into letting go of what no longer brings life. That isn’t to say suffering is good or should be glorified. Rather, it is to acknowledge that pain changes us, and sometimes it reveals what we are being asked to release.

We may be holding onto illusions: the illusion of control, the illusion that life should be pain-free, the illusion that we must have it all figured out. We may be clinging to perfectionism or shame, convinced that our worth depends on getting everything right. But Good Friday says something deeper: Some things must die for resurrection to become possible.

What stories have you been telling yourself that no longer hold truth?

What relationships, roles, or identities have defined you but now ask to be released?

What beliefs about God, yourself, or others are no longer bearing fruit?

This dying is not about guilt. It’s about freedom. It’s about loosening our grip so that something new might eventually rise. As my preaching professor once said, “You can’t have Easter without Good Friday. You can’t have resurrection without crucifixion.”

So today, I invite you to stay in this moment.

Don’t rush toward resolution. Don’t bypass the pain. Instead, sit with it. Let it speak to you. Let it shape you. Cry out. Grieve. Name the heaviness. And in time—when the silence is ready to break—may you discover that even in the depths of suffering, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.