Friday and Sunday
I remember one summer when we were kids, my brother and I were bobbing in the ocean when he asked, “If God is outside of time and we are with God when we’re in heaven, then couldn’t we be watching ourselves right now?” That broke my brain a little bit. Periodic reminder that my little brother and sister are consistently brilliant people.
I don’t know what I believe about God and time nor do I want to suggest that was the endcap to my brother’s theology on the subject, but that memory popped into my head today. I have been thinking a lot today about how we assign names and numbers to make sense of the ever-flowing stream of time. The months, days, and years that we have placed on time in concert with the earth’s rhythms are why I am 37 years old instead of eighteen and a half or 148. Today is Wednesday, but someone at some point could have just as easily decided that this day would be called Ralph.
All of that sounds very much like some zoned out late night college dorm room conversation. Being 148 years old on this gray Ralph morning is not why time is on my mind. It’s because it is Holy Week. It is that moment in time when we mark out and remember the final week of Jesus’ earthly ministry: his triumphal entry, his sharing in a last supper, his crucifixion, and resurrection. It is during this time of looking back and forward and within that time becomes a bit unmoored.
On Palm Sunday, our pastor quoted that great Holy Week line (attributed to S. M. Lockridge): “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming. I have always loved the hope that animates that saying. No matter what difficulty or trial you or I face, rescue and new life are on the way. It is an essential reminder in a life filled with proverbial dark Fridays.
I still love the saying but it too is breaking my brain a bit right now. Because our experiences of metaphorical Fridays and Sundays are all over the map simultaneously (not to mention our metaphorical random Tuesdays or Ralphs). There are people in the midst of months or years of seemingly unceasing Fridays while others are living their best life in the sunshine of Sunday. Many of us will experience these times of joy and deep sadness in shockingly close proximity to one another. You could have a score of Fridays, Sundays, and Ralphs within 24 hours.
It’s also possible that one person may find Sunday within what another person would deem Friday. When you think about the scale of the world and time, it is overwhelming. What does Friday and Sunday mean in all of this? How can we exult in our Sundays when it is Friday for so many? To turn a phrase, is it not truly Sunday until it is Sunday for all of us?
In a way, I believe that last statement is true. I also realize that the constant knowledge of a billion different Fridays is a crushing burden to bear. So I reach to the thing about Holy Week that is giving me hope right now. God is there every single day of the week. Even on Friday. At the cross, when Jesus cries out the gutting question “Why have you forsaken me?” God is hanging there and suffering that dark night of the soul when it feels like even God has abandoned you.
The psalmist wrote: “Where can I go from Your spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the land of the dead), you are there.” I don’t know if God is outside of time, but God is definitely inside of time with us. It may be Friday and I trust that Sunday is coming, but regardless of when it comes, God is still with us. And God is not going anywhere no matter what day it is.
