Good Friday Reflection & Prayer of Lament for Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Photo by Francesco Alberti on Unsplash

Today is Good Friday, the day Jesus went to the cross. I’ve always found it a little strange that we call this day “good.” Because this is the day that Jesus dies, is that really good?

Maybe a better name would be “Necessary Friday”—There is forgiveness of sins for the world, yes, but also injustice, pain, betrayal, violence, and silence.

There’s a deep tension in Good Friday. I often want to rush past it—get to Sunday, to the empty tomb, the hallelujahs, the resurrection. Christ has risen, He has risen, indeed!

But the power of Holy Week is in walking the journey with Jesus. Not skipping ahead.

Last night, on Holy Thursday, we remembered how Jesus served his disciples and had one last meal with them. We heard his final call:

“Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples—if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

And then we watched Judas slip into the night. Love and betrayal—sitting at the same table.

That’s the uncomfortable tension of this week. Death and hope. Justice and injustice. Cross and resurrection. It’s messy. It’s hard to explain. It’s not neat and put together.

But it is human, and it is God walking with us through the tension and pain.

And it’s why this day matters—because Good Friday holds up a mirror.

We know what it feels like when life collapses around us. When the story doesn’t go the way we hoped. When we whisper prayers like: “God, everything is falling apart. Where are you?”

And so does Jesus.

Each Good Friday, I am reminded of these words from Pete Enns in The Sin of Certainty:

“Trust God even when we don’t know what we believe, even when all before us is absurd.”¹

That’s Good Friday. The disciples stood at the foot of the cross, thinking, This can’t be happening. This isn’t how it was supposed to end.

So, on this Good Friday, don’t rush past the tension.

We sit in it. We grieve. We name the injustice in our world, and we bring it to the foot of the cross.

Today, we bring with us the pain of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a young man taken from his home in Maryland, deported in defiance of a U.S. court order, and now imprisoned in a country he once fled for his safety. A man whose story echoes the very injustice and abandonment we see on the cross.

On this Good Friday, may we hold the pain of Jesus' death on the cross, but also hold injustice everywhere.

As Christians, we are called to confront evil and injustice in whatever form it presents itself.

The injustice of the cross.

The injustice within America is in how we treat others. As we heard last night, people will know that we are disciples of Jesus by our love for one another.

So today, on this Good Friday, do not just sit in the injustice, but let’s pray. Let’s lament the ways we are not living up to the call to be known as Jesus’ disciples by our love for one another. For all people.

Today, let’s pray this prayer of lament and sit with the tension of pain and hope. Let’s hold both on this Good Friday.

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Prayer of Lament and Hope for Kilmar Abrego Garcia

God of the Cross,
On this day when we remember Your Son—betrayed, arrested, falsely accused, beaten, and executed—
We lift up Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

We see the cross of Jesus,
And in its shadow, we see the suffering of Your child Kilmar:
Torn from his family.
Silenced by systems.
Locked away by injustice.

We lament that Kilmar’s story is not unique.
We lament that violence still reigns,
That human dignity is still dismissed,
That justice is still delayed.

We remember that Jesus, too, was taken in the night.
He, too, was falsely condemned.
He, too, cried out: “My God, why have You forsaken me?”

And so today, we cry with Kilmar.
We cry with all who are detained, deported, forgotten.
We cry with the disciples who could not understand.
We cry with every soul still waiting for resurrection.

But we do not cry without hope.
Because even now, even from the cross, You are still at work.
Your love has not left us.
Your justice has not given up.
And Sunday will come.

Until that day, give us the courage to stay at the foot of the cross.
To not look away.
To hold the tension.
To trust You—even when all before us is absurd.

Through Jesus Christ, who died with us and for us,
Amen.

1. Pete Enns, The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires our Trust More than out “Correct” Beliefs (HarperCollins Publishers, 2016), 80.