It's Friday, but...

The hardest part about Easter is the Friday before. My church’s Good Friday service ends in darkness with a recording of thunder and storm, and then the wham of a bass drum. And quiet.

The tomb.

That’s the mood I brought this morning to scripture reading. My journey back through Psalms landed me at Psalm 17, a sweet song of seeking to live for God in the midst of arrogance and evil.

“Friday” is the violent (v. 4), the wicked and mortal enemies (v. 9), calloused hearts and arrogant mouths (v.10), predators (vs. 11-12), people whose reward is “this life” (v. 14). It’s life without hope of something better or something pure or something with God.

It’s life without Sunday coming. Without Easter.

A relative died last week at 47. So did a godly friend, at 63, barely home from a trip to Israel to walk where Jesus walked. Such news came like the wham of a bass drum. But to borrow the title of a sermon by Tony Campolo, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” Easter Sunday has come. Death is not the final “wham.” Thus the hope expressed at the end of Psalm 17:
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
Or, as translated with greater accuracy and fuller meaning in the Amplified Bible:
As for me, I will continue beholding Your face in righteousness (rightness, justice, and right standing with You); I shall be fully satisfied, when I awake [to find myself] beholding Your form [and having sweet communion with You].

One of my favorite Christian songs asks us to imagine waking up in glory, and finding it Home. That’s Easter. Not eggs, bunnies, or new clothes, but glory and hope forever after hopeless Friday.