The weight of human existence

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Spiritual reflection for Good Friday with Rev Richard Frazer of the Church of Scotland. Good morning. The most moving sculpture I have seen is in the Vatican in Rome, The Pietà. It is a depiction of Mary, Jesus’s mother whom the accounts tell us witnessed the crucifixion of her son. In Michelangelo’s sculpture she is depicted cradling his dead body in her arms. It is a depiction of profound sorrow, down to the depths of loss, and it is almost impossible not to feel moved. There is a question I once read asking, ‘what would you see if you saw the face of God?’ And the answer was, ‘You would see a face half ruined by suffering and fierce with joy’. Mysteriously, that sculpture of Mary’s sorrow cradling in her arms the child she once bore speaks profoundly of the many tragic moments that living a fully human life brings about. This Holy Week for Christians is not a fingers-crossed hope against hope that all will turn out well. For many in our world that simply does not happen. It’s an opportunity to reflect on how we can begin to bear the weight of human existence when things do not go as we had hoped or planned. This is an emotional week in which the narrative about Jesus played out in Jerusalem all those years ago enables us to read the story of human life with its tragedy, betrayal and brutality and know that suffering may not completely ruin us but instead has the potential to illuminate the costliness of what it means to grow into our full humanity. Gracious God, each one of us carries the marks of life upon us. Lines of laughter mix with stories of loss and suffering etched upon us. As we reflect on the suffering of Good Friday, help us to discover that you turn ‘laments and curses into hymns’, heralding the new. Amen.