GOOD FRIDAY | You Just Have To Make Camp

Early this Lenten season, Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry encouraged us to celebrate the power that God’s love has to transform this world and to actively seek the holy every day. Episcopal Relief & Development is pleased to share a Good Friday story to help guide us as we follow in the steps of Jesus.

Several years ago, a clergy friend of mine and I were having coffee and discussing what it is to feel “lost.” An avid camper, she related the spiritual state of being lost to the physical state of being lost in the wilderness.

Imagine – with an ever-lightening pack on your back, you have trekked out miles and miles. You are physically drained; you are running low on food and water. Nothing seems familiar, no signs of civilization, and fear starts creeping in like a descending darkness. You are lost, and you are terrified. Your first instinct is to run as fast as you can in search of something – anything – to give you a sense of orientation. But that first instinct will only lead you further into lost-ness, further away from finding your way home.

“So what you have to do in those moments,” she said, “is take a breath. Sit down. Be still….You just have to make camp.”

I think about that bit of wisdom every year as Holy Week rolls around. Good Friday, especially, carries the weighty-ness not only of loss, but of being lost. This is unfamiliar, unfriendly, hostile terrain. I want to rush forward to Easter – to that sense of home, of being found, to an orientation of resurrection, redemption, and new life.

But, this Good Friday, every Good Friday, and every time and phase of life that feels like Good Friday – I just have to make camp. Not as a passing tourist, but as a pilgrim going deeper and being still. Sitting at the foot of the cross. Keeping watch at the tomb. We just have to make camp. Only when we make camp do we find our way home.

Read other Easter stories:
Maundy Thursday | Wash One Another’s Feet by Jerusalem Greer
Ash Wednesday | God Loves Us Even In Our Dustiness by Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry

Allison Duvall serves as the manager for church relations and engagement for Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), the refugee resettlement ministry of The Episcopal Church.