Today, as I write, the sky is gray and has been for a few days. It is gloomy, and dark. If I didn’t know better, I would think that the sun had vanished. Yet, my experience tells me that behind dark gray clouds, the sun is beating down its life giving power on our earth. Seasons are turning and soon trees will bud, flowers will bloom and spring with all of its joy and delight will be upon us. I know this, because I have watched seasons come and go throughout my lifetime.

Our faith tells us that there are seasons in the rest of life . . . Seasons of plenty, seasons of want. There are seasons of joy and seasons of sadness. God has written this cycle into the very nature of the universe. Spring always follows winter, life will always follow death.

In our better moments we remember these things. It is much harder to keep this in mind when Good Friday’s pain is fresh upon us. We look around at a world that seems terribly diminished. We wonder what good can possibly come in the future after the devastation we’ve experienced. We question where God, who should have held up our world a bit better, is at. Like Job, we cry out in pain, loneliness, despair and grief, wondering at God and a world that has not been fair to us. We call to mind Jesus’s own agony on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46

Good Friday, inevitably arrives before Easter’s joy. This is the nature of the universe. The Good News is that Easter does come. If this is a Good Friday time for you, hold fast, for it shall surely pass. Easter’s gift of life is on the way.