Watch the video above for a Good Friday message from Bishop Escobedo-Frank. In this video, she shares her recent experience with the Northern European and Eurasian Conference in Copenhagen and provides a devotional on Matthew 27, encouraging us to cry out to God in this moment.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Hello everyone, it’s Bishop Dottie Escobedo-Frank from the California Pacific Conference.

I wanted to come to you today during Holy Week and just give you a greeting and a thought.

My greeting comes as I return from being in the Northern European and Eurasian conference in Copenhagen.

I spent a week with them as they elected a new bishop and then came back to the United States after a week of vacation in Amsterdam.

So in those two places, I saw some things that were of concern to me.

I saw how  in Denmark, they received me and welcomed me in even though they had some concerns about our country and how what decisions that we are making would affect their, their area.

And yet they gracefully accepted me in and had discussions with me around, around world events

and political events in their, in their context. Then I went to Amsterdam and saw the, the Ann Frank neighborhood Jewish Quarter, and then the place where she lived and heard the story again of all that happened and heard the concerns in the European context of crying out for peace and hope for no war to come to their land anymore than it already is through the war in Ukraine.

And I know around the world there’s places where war is a reality and in ways that we can’t imagine on our own soil. So as I heard all those cries from different areas, I also thought about this week and especially about Good Friday. So I’m giving you this message for Good Friday.

There’s a whole lot into the story. I hope you take time to read the whole scripture around Good Friday. But I’m reading in Matthew 27 and just one phrase, when Jesus at three cried out with a loud shout and he cried out, my God, my God, why have you left me?

And I think about all the places in the world where we feel alone and left and desolate and afraid and fearful and wondering, God, can’t you fix this now? Are you leaving me now in this place where despair reigns? And Jesus knew what that was like.

Jesus had that same cry out to God, my God, my God, have you left me? Why have you left me? So in these moments that come to us on the Fridays of our lives, we must remember that in places around the world, people are being graceful and merciful, even to an American who comes into their context.

And yet, the United Methodists welcomed this American and treated me with respect and mercy and dignity. And we must remember that even in the places where we don’t feel connection, where, where we feel more despair than anything else, that there are good people in the world, that God is inviting us to find, and that even in the most isolated places, we really aren’t alone. It doesn’t mean we won’t have that cry out experience like Jesus did. God have you left me? 

That’s a very real experience when our world is doing what our world is doing right now. And when we see more evil in our political context, then we see good. When we see the, the problems in our communities that are developing around our political situation, um, the people who are hurting, who don’t have their father or husband with them anymore, who don’t even know where they are. When we see those contexts in our own, in our own setting and we see what’s happening around the world, we of course can cry out, why have you left me, God?

And in that moment of crying out, we remember that God is, God, hear hears our cries. God is with us. As God heard Jesus’s cry, God hears our cry and will respond to us. But sometimes it takes us leaning and crying out and asking for God’s help to understand the cries of the world. So today, I invite you on your Good Friday to make sure you listen and pay attention to the places where people are crying and cry out with them and for them and ask that God be near to them. As God is near to you, I invite you and hope that you’ll find a local United Methodist church to go to and to worship at, and to worship together. And I encourage you as pastors and staff members who are working really hard this week, to know that God is right there with you, inviting you into the middle of this story, all parts of it, even the Good Friday part.

My heart is with you. My prayers are with you. And I pray that you allow yourself to feel the experience of Good Friday so that when Easter comes, it will mean something very deep and very transformative.

God be with you. I’m always praying for you.
It’s good Friday. When you feel that despair.
Remember, you are not alone. God is still with us.

Amen.