Through Stained Glass: A Good Friday Reflection

Atop a high mountain or in the dark valley below,

in the corner of your room,

or in the hustle and bustle of the busy city centre,

may you find a ‘thin place’.

It is a place, or time, or event so unique, so full of wonder, so sublime.

A place where Heaven and earth collide,

and the diaphanous veil of separation is unusually thin.

A time where you can almost feel angelic wings beat against your cheeks,

and see the Divine smile shining through.

An event where your heartbeat quickens,

and you experience the mystery of the Other in the ‘mundane’.

A ‘thin place’ is a threshold, a limen, a holy bridge,

a door to the Throne Room, slightly opened.

It is a moment in time and space,

in which we can dwell, and dance, and move, if aware.

A ‘thin place’ is an encouragement, a sacred invitation to draw near,

to approach barefoot, in humility, in reverence and awe.

It is both seen and unseen.

Invisible we see you!

May you, in the wilderness of the countryside, or the city,

find a ‘thin place’ today, and be blessed.

Celtic spirituality calls them thin places.

They are the places where we feel inexplicably close to the Divine. Think geographically. For me, the thin places I've gone to are the Badlands in South Dakota, Mount St. Thomas in Kakkanad, Kerala, India, and beneath a giant oak tree on my parent’s property. Other examples are the forest, the beach, and even the desert. The thin places are where a window opens up, and we get a glimpse into the heart of the Divine. We transcend the moment and become completely aware of Holy within and around us. 

The Celtics also have a great phrase to describe these places. It goes something like, “Heaven and Earth are only three feet apart, but in thin places, that distance is even shorter." What makes it great is that it is true. We are irrevocably intertwined with the Divine—creations in the image and likeness of the Creator.

Another concept that speaks to me is the idea of liminal space: the threshold between what is and what will be. Think of the changing of the seasons: the end of winter when creation appears dormant but beneath the service spring is already in motion. 17^th-century mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and philosopher, Blaize Pascal, summed it up best when he wrote, “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

To get technical with liminal comes from the Latin root, limen, which means "threshold." The liminal space is the "crossing over" space – an area where you have left something behind, yet you are not yet fully in something else. It's a transition space.

Thin places.

Liminal spaces.

These are the meanderings occupying my mind tonight.

Good Friday does that to me, though. It is the second day of the Three Days, the Triduum—the part of Holy Week commemorating the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The older I get, the more these days, especially today, become passageways into something more significant. Don't get me wrong. I understand what today is about theologically: forgiveness, the setting in motion the triumph of life over death, and the proof in the pudding of God's love for all creation. I’m also aware of all the white dudes who have created all the atonement theories as to why Jesus died, if Jesus knew he was going to die, and what it all means to us.

All of it is important.

The part that moves me deeper into the story is the thinness and the liminality of it all. The thin place isn't the crucifixion—but what follows. You know what I mean, the silence after death when all is said and done, and the phone calls quit, and the casseroles stop showing up on your doorstep. The thin place for me in the drama of it all is what happens when Christ is in the tomb, and Mary is alone—either Mary, you pick.

Remember, thin places are those geographical places that open us up to the Divine. The thin place of Good Friday is the deafening darkness that comes when we are left alone in our grief. Yes, the love of God is in full display in the crucifixion of the cross, but the heart of God opens up in the silence like a curtain opening on a sunny spring morning. The thin place of Good Friday is in the realization of God’s uncompromising love for us, even when we turn our backs on God. Of course, to get into this thin place, we can't rush to Sunday. We have to sit in our suffering, we have to name our shame, and we must stay in our scorn. Moving too quickly through this grief might cause us to miss what just happened—and what is happening right now. When the body is gone, the disciples have scattered, and Mary, the Mother of God, won’t make her evening check in on her baby boy.

What I'm saying about the thin place of Good Friday is this: we must enter through the window of death's stark reality to be present entirely to God's presence in our sorrow. Good Friday offers thin places as a spiritual discipline—invites us into a place of prayer. Tonight, we've remembered and retold the story when the incarnate God experiences the fullness of what it means to be human. I discover once more the interconnectedness of the human family—and our place in the economy of the Trinity. The thin place of Good Friday comforts me by revealing that God knows my suffering and, at this moment, when the people of God hold their breath between what has just happened and what will be, God holds Her breath, too. 

The thin place of Good Friday opens up to the liminal space of Holy Saturday.

The trouble for me during the Triduum is knowing that as the famous preacher said, "Yea, it is Good Friday, but Sunday is a’comin." As I mentioned above, I want to rush to Sunday. Rushing has always been a problem for me. At parent-teacher conferences, the teacher always told my parents, "Adam is a great student…when he slows down, doesn't rush, and takes his time." As an adult, when things get hard, like when I'm sheltering-in-place, and I desperately want to be with the people I love, I want to just get through it already. I'm not always appreciative of liminal spaces.

Tonight is a liminal time. We are in the in-between. The cross is empty, the body is in the tomb, and the world [read, my heart] is in chaos. I love what Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue says about thresholds and the in-between. He says:

• “To acknowledge and cross a new threshold is always a challenge. It demands courage and also a sense of trust in whatever is emerging. This becomes essential when a threshold opens suddenly in front of you, one for which you had no preparation. This could be illness, suffering or loss. Because we are so engaged with the world, we usually forget how fragile life can be and how vulnerable we always are. It takes only a couple of seconds for a life to change irreversibly. Suddenly you stand on completely strange ground, and a new course of life has to be embraced.”

In these unprecedented pandemic days, I don't think we have forgotten how fragile life is. However, I do believe we are missing the new life resurrecting right beneath our feet because we all want to get back to 'normal.'

Let’s get to Sunday already so we can sing our ‘alleluias,’ and our preachers can use every metaphor possible when discussing what the Great Fifty Days of Easter will look like during COVID-19. I say let's pump the breaks. Let’s take a moment to catch our breath, listen to what we are experiencing during this liminal time of what was and what will be on the other side of shelter-in-place entombments, and let's allow what’s happening in the unknown to change us.

I guess what I’m saying is this: tonight look for the thin place, and when we find it, we will most definitely enter into the liminal space. The passage is where transformation happens—it is where resurrection begins. 

Tonight is uncomfortable—even if we know the ending of the story. Ease into the discomfort and sit with God who's heart is broken along with ours. Tonight, resist the temptation of "business as usual." Instead, just be. Hold the tension lightly, and do not judge yourself with whatever you are feeling. Linger as long as you can in this liminal space and ask what the thin place is revealing to you. Tonight, beloved children of God, we sit in the ash heap of what was and embrace what is. Death is our thin place, and it is the liminal space we need to understand the promise of Sunday fully.

That promise is, of course, that heaven and earth are three feet apart. After Sunday, we remember all is entwined in the love of God.

I hope so anyway…

But I’m not going to rush it.