There’s a form of artistic expression that originated in Japan a few centuries ago - it’s called Kintsugi. It’s a combination of two Japanese words: “kint,” which means gold, and sugi, which means “to mend.” Kintsugi begins with pottery that has been broken, shards of plates, cups, and bowls that are no longer able to function as they were intended. Then the artist, after collecting and getting to know these broken pieces, will create special mixture, laced with gold, and mend the pieces together again. This is done out of a deep care for the pottery itself, a belief that it’s never impossible to redeem and restore these pieces to their original purpose.
Here at Midtown Presbyterian Church, on Good Friday, we remember that Jesus has done the same thing for the pottery of our lives. Each of us, in our own ways, has strayed from our true humanity, choosing to believe and embody brokenness, darkness, and lies about who we are and how we are to live. This is evident in the world around us through things like oppression, war, injustice, and poverty. It is also evident in our own hearts through things like greed, envy, lust, and pride. We are all reminded every day of the brokenness and death we have wrought in the world.
Yet we also believe that the story doesn't end with our brokenness. God, in His great mercy and love, has come to heal our broken lives and broken world through the cross of Jesus Christ. It is on this cross that Jesus descends into the death that our sin has created and absorbs that death into Himself, that we might be freed from it in our own lives. Christ bore our sin in his body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. So each year, we gather as a community to remember what Christ has done for everyone, and recognize its significance in our own lives, individually and collectively. This is what makes this Friday good.
Watch as Rev. Gayle Parker explores the story of Judas, and how the Judas chromosome truly lives in each and every one of us.
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