This Good Friday I am thinking of my friend Lee Hoffner whose dear wife Anne died on Monday from cancer at the tender age of 34. Word’s can’t express the depth of sorrow that many of us feel for the Hoffners, and yet we realize that our grief doesn’t begin to compare with the pain that Lee himself carries in his heart.
On such occasions there’s little that a pastor can say. All we can do is stand beside our brother, join him in shedding tears, and together look to the cross where Jesus died…
See the thick clouds overhead, sweet birds cease to sing. On the cross, pierced for transgression, shed blood, Jesus cries with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Alone, deserted, a sheep led to the slaughter.
Jesus on the Cross.
In silence, the bleeding Savior breathes his last.
It is finished.
Please pray for Lee.
I sat near Lee during tonight’s Good Friday service. I couldn’t help but try to see the service through his eyes.
“the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.” Romans 8:21-23