I just completed the Good Friday Service for my Parish, and now I'm enjoying a "hot-crossed bun" (I probably am saying it wrong) that was made for me by one of my parishioners. She said that it has become a tradition of hers to make some and give them to a new friend on Good Friday to someone that has become a new friend in the past year. (Here's the moment when you don't say "Awwwww", but instead, "Aw, how nice!")
This reminds me of the hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus". We can all think back to a time, recently or farther back, when it seems like life has dealt us a bad hand... an argument, a wrongful act, or a bad mistake - The burden it places on our shoulders, and the feeling of physical pain that causes in our necks, shoulders, and arms.
When I take part in a Good Friday Service, I always think of the physical pain that Jesus had to endure when he was crucified for us. The reason that people were hung on the cross in those days was that is was a form of torture - a slow death. Hanging as Jesus did would have put a great pressure on his shoulders and arms, so great that the weight of his own body would have him slumped into a position to where pressure and tension, more than we can imagine, was placed upon his diaphram muscles, and thus would have caused a slow suffocation from the inability to take a full breath.
When I prepare for Good Friday Services, I also feel a tension, but nothing compared to what Jesus would have endured for our sake. Mine is simply a case of "stage fright" that subtly happens with me every time I preach.
But in thinking of what sacrifice was made for each and every one of us, how else can you not realize what a friend we do have in Jesus? To bear our burdens, our troubles, our hurts, and our pains is more than any one of us can do. To give, literally, of himself, so to take away the sting of death, is something that we often forget.
"What a Friend We Have in Jesus" may not always be a "typical Holy Week hymn", but it is something that we can remember every day.
