They Stayed
Good Friday
Reflection By Robbin Brent
Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
- John 19:25
As we contemplate Jesus’ suffering and death on this solemn day, the faithful women who remained with him to the end stand as powerful witnesses. The Gospel of John tells us that Mary, his mother, Mary Magdalene, and other women stood near the cross, bearing witness to his agony, steadfast in their love.
These women had followed Jesus from Galilee and provided for him out of their means. They refused to look away from his pain, even as others fled in fear and despair. Their presence at the foot of the cross testifies to the depth of their love and the strength of their faith.
Dorothy Day wrote about “the healing power of community and the long loneliness we all face.” I think of her wisdom when I consider what these women embodied at the cross—the healing power of simply being with others in their suffering.
When we’re faced with someone else’s suffering, we often feel helpless or inadequate. We worry that we’ll say or do the wrong thing, that we can’t possibly fix the situation. But the women who stayed with Jesus in his agony show us something different: sometimes the most profound gift we can offer is simply our presence—the willingness to bear witness, to share the pain, to sit with the unanswerable questions.
The witness of the women at the cross reminds us that love endures, that faithfulness and compassion have the power to heal even the most hopeless of situations. By remaining present to Jesus in his suffering, they became the first witnesses of the resurrection, the first to experience God’s love breaking through death itself.
This Good Friday, we can choose to stay with Mary and the women at the cross, keeping vigil with the crucified Christ and all who suffer in our world. By staying present to pain, we trust that we will also become witnesses to the resurrection power of love, the love that has the final word, even in the face of death itself.
Making It Personal: As you contemplate the image of the women at the foot of the cross, what stirs in your heart? How might you practice staying present to suffering, both your own and others’, trusting in the power of love? Who has been a healing presence in your own times of suffering, and how might you offer this gift to others? If you have held space with someone who is suffering, how did you experience love, compassion, strength, and courage? How has that changed you?