When Good Friday Doesn't Go My Way

Thwarted plans, acts of service, and liturgy of the ordinary.

I wrote this piece in 2022, and I’m bringing it back this year, for this Good Friday, because I find myself in the same position: canceling church plans due to a sick child. So much of parenthood is repetition—but so is faith, as we commemorate the Resurrection each year, again and again, and see God’s grace anew.

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Photo by Cdoncel on Unsplash

The Friday before Easter, traditionally commemorated by Christians as the day Jesus was crucified — Good Friday in some churches, Holy Friday in others — didn’t go the way I wanted it to this year.

I couldn’t go to my church’s Maundy Thursday (day of the Last Supper) service because it took place at my son’s bedtime, and my husband doesn’t get home from work in time to help put our rambunctious boy to sleep. There were two Good Friday services, one at noon and one at night (still out of reach for me), and after some pondering, I decided to go to the noon service and volunteer in the nursery. I wouldn’t get to actually be in the sanctuary, but I could spend time with my son while helping take care of other people’s little ones, and after completing all the paperwork required to legally be entrusted with kids in a nonprofit setting, I was eager to get started helping out in the nursery.

Sure, I wouldn’t be in the worship service. But service to others is in and of itself an act of worship. Doing what I could to give back — after all, my son plays in this same nursery every Sunday so I can attend services — seemed like a good way to spend the day of remembrance for the culmination of Jesus’ service on earth. A small thing in the grand scheme of varyingly-sized things, but nothing is too small for God, right?

Friday morning dawned, and my son slept in late. Really late. So late, we started to wonder if he was okay. My husband left for work, but I continued to watch the baby monitor until stirrings and croakings broke the silence around nine AM. For a bouncing boy who’s usually up by six, this didn’t bode well.

My predictions were right. Feverish, clingy, and unwilling to taste more than a bite of his breakfast, my toddler was not in any danger, but certainly not well enough to transport his germs to a host of unsuspecting little nursery folk.

Cuddling in the recliner with my fretful, whimpering baby, I called the church and told them I couldn’t make it. I apologized for the short notice. I was graciously assured it would be all right. I stroked my son’s hot cheeks, tried to entice him to drink a mixture of water and grape juice, and felt sorry for both of us. (Particularly for myself, as the loop of Gecko’s Garage playing on the TV made me want to whimper and hurl sippy cups across the room.)

The day wore on slowly, with an amount of screen time I don’t particularly care to quantify, and a much smaller amount of fluids and baby Tylenol than I would have preferred. My son took a good nap, but woke up crankier than ever. The afternoon felt like a never-ending cycle of cartoons, tractors, a few pages here and there of one book after another, and repeated attempts to get him to drink something. Inwardly, I grumbled.

Even when I want to serve others, I hit a wall. Why, God? This is unfair.

(I hope you’re inspired by the fluidity, grace, and eloquence of my silent prayers. I know I sure am. Practically a psalmist over here.)

I just wanted to make my sweet boy better. I just wanted to give back a little bit to the church community I’ve joined. I just wanted to…

…do the will of my Father in heaven.

Which, on that day, apparently consisted of serving just one single, small scrap of humanity, one whiny and weepy toddler who didn’t understand why his head throbbed and his feet were too hot.

Preaching in Jerusalem during the very last days before his crucifixion, Jesus painted a picture of the last days of judgment, when the righteous will come before God, the King, and be welcomed into heaven.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
— Matthew 25:34–40

Jesus came down from heaven to save people from “every tribe and language and nation” (Revelation 5), to make them his brothers — his family — to fulfill the will of God. He served us on earth. He suffered. He died. He rose again.

I won’t attempt to get into a deep theological rabbit hole of how much Jesus, in his human state, planned or knew about his death on the cross. We know he knew he was going to die. We also know he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane that God, his Father would take this cup of suffering away from him. That things would not go the way that he didn’t want them to go.

But God knew better, and through that better knowledge came salvation.

I won’t pretend that the act of service that plays out in rocking a crying toddler to sleep is anything comparable to dying for the sins of the world. (I mean… Come on.)

But if faith is lived out in the small obediences, the sacrifice of selfishness, the putting away of what I want and listening for the still small voice of the Holy Spirit and seeking to do what God wants… then truly, what I do for the least of Jesus’ family is what I do for him.

Sure, I can do that in the church nursery. And I will, once my son gets better. But what I was called to do this Good Friday was to focus all my service on one tiny human being, who matters to the God of the universe. To wipe his nose and fix his juice cup and clean up the sticky spills on the kitchen floor and switch the TV from Thomas the Tank Engine to Winnie the Pooh and back again, to walk the floor holding an overtired little screamer and to rock his flushed and drowsy head to sleep on my shoulder.

A “liturgy of the ordinary.” A prayer that says “not my will, but Yours be done.”

I’m not so good at it. I spent a large part of the day feeling peeved that this was what I was called to. I sulked. I ate more cheddar goldfish than I should have. I disappeared into scrolling my phone instead of focusing my attention on the child on my lap. I am not a perfect mother or a perfect Jesus-follower. I never will be on this side of heaven.

But God takes these imperfect moments, these tiny acts of worship, and strings them into his perfect will. Just as he did on a terrible Friday night on Calvary when it seemed to those who loved Jesus best that the world was ending.

My world didn’t end because I didn’t get to do what I wanted to do today. In fact, my world is open to the endless light of eternity because God came down to earth in the form of a mortal, humble human, and did what he didn’t want to do.

And that, Charlie Brown, is what Good Friday is all about.