Who decides the official “Worst Day Of The Year?” Hallmark. If a panel of Nobel Prize physicists decided that, I would be skeptical, and if Hallmark declared on what really happened with the Big Bang, I would guffaw. But when Hallmark declared, several years ago, that my birthday is the worst day of the year, I had to bow to them.

I have an anniversary in July of a worst day in my life, and the anniversary of my father’s shocking death suckerpunches me every year. I know it’s coming, and it happened 42 years ago, but it kicks me in the stomach every year.

So does Good Friday. A Catholic church is a morbid place during the Triduum, with Jesus on the cross and all the saints covered in red robes, as if to spare them the trauma of the events recounted during these days.

A Zen story tells of an eminent monk who was accused of fathering the child of a young girl. “Is that so?” he replied to his accusers. “So des ka” is a Japanese phrase for that, which is a favorite of mine, acquired watching Japanese TV shows. Humiliated and despised, the Zen monk’s reply was simply a bemused, “Is that so?” After the truth came out and the child was taken from him, his final response was the same: “Is that so?” Throughout the Passion narratives, I like to imagine Jesus not saying, “You say so,” or, “You have said it,” but, “So des ka.”

What really happened? I see my son and think, “This guy is capable of greatness.” God must have felt the same about Jesus, that He would accomplish great things. But when did Jesus read those Suffering Servant prophecies and realize He was destined to be crucified?

Hindsight is 20-20, and it’s easy to say that anyone could have seen where Jesus was headed, given the ruthlessness of His enemies. One of my hard lessons of Lent is to gain some insight into how much and how often I am overwhelmed and defeated by the corruption entwined with my every thought and impulse. To recount how Jesus was done in by cold blood, hard hearts, and politics, is to appreciate Jesus’ knowledge that His executioners didn’t know what they were doing. Maybe they thought they knew, but do we ever? Donald Rumsfeld could have told the Sanhedrin about “unknown unknowns,” and Pilate could have rephrased his famous rhetoric: “What is that?”

I imagine God witnessing it all, saying, “That’s my Son. As some have said, ‘He has done all things well.'”

Life is terribly hard and difficult.

I’ve grown up and aged with Lent and the Passion Scriptures as an integral part of most of my springtimes. The Gospel accounts of the apocalyptic drama of the death of Jesus endure as the most pivotal texts I’ve ever read. The ol’ heart breaks over and over as Jesus breaks the bread and says, “This is My Body,” this common, nothing-special loaf of bread people use and abuse and discard without a second thought, and “This is My Blood,” this ordinary glass of wine. A glass of wine– big deal. A strife-sowing Jew– big deal. “One of you is going to betray me, and it would be better for you if you had never been born.” It must have taken Jesus a long time to compose Himself before He could even get all those terrible words out of His Throat.

“Ecce homo.” “Behold, the man.”

Yesterday I saw a homeless man, wrapped in a blanket, with long, dirty hair and blank eyes walking along Denny Way by the Seattle Center. The everyday news has plenty of stories about the innocents of the world, near and far, crushed and annihilated by life in the cruelest ways.

Every day a heart beats, and breaks, and there is no hiding from it.

Jesus is Lord and Messiah, we say– difficult, abstract concepts, with lots of theological baggage, and that’s fine.

Better still, Jesus is my friend, my hero, my brother. He has made us all sisters and brothers, and children of the eternal Father of us all. About that, on this Friday before Easter, I feel good!