Five Minute Friday: Patient
This post isn’t really about patience, it’s about Good Friday and my reflections from my reading this morning. But how patient is our God to continue to love, accept, and forgive us, even when we are as blind and pious as those who killed him. May we all be on our knees today.
Good Friday
Even while killing the Man, they meticulously kept the law. They could not be sullied on the day before the Passover, lest they be unclean, unable to partake of the celebration of their deliverance. And so they stood outside Pilate’s house while shouting their lies. Wouldn’t do to defile themselves. So they stood at a safe distance while the soldiers drove in the nails, blow by blow. So they rushed to make sure the Man was really dead so they could run home to prepare. So they made certain the body they had mutilated and murdered was taken down, lest it hang there on their holy day. So they shut in stone their handiwork and sealed it up nice and tight.
They celebrated Passover, the holiest of days that reminded them of their long-ago deliverance that foreshadowed the ultimate rescue of their people. They brushed the doorposts of their homes with the blood of an unblemished lamb and sat behind them, snug and safe. They remembered the brutality of their persecutors and sang of the mighty hand of God that set them free. They said the words and prayed the prayers and thought about how holy they were as they lifted their clean hands in praise.
They were good Jews. No one could accuse them of failing their God.
View from the Valley 
To give you an idea of how impatient I am, I skipped your first paragraph and got right to your writing. “This is great, but what does it have to do with patience?” I asked myself. Then I scrolled back to the top and read your first paragraph. Haha.
Anyway, I love the point you are getting at – the religious leaders were so concerned about keeping their outside “clean” that they neglected to keep their hearts clean. Lord help me when I do the same.
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If we are to go to God,
perhaps we need some prudence;
for truly, we are worse than flawed,
and maybe worse than Judas.
We didn’t just betray one time;
we do it every single day,
and for repetition of the crime
we seek to find a way
that glorifies the life we want,
and not the one we need;
we hide our shame with boast and vaunt,
and clothe our lack in greed.
We’re not the Romans, haughty, proud,
but jeering yokels in the crowd.
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