For weeks and weeks after the twin towers were destroyed in 2001, The New York Times ran short profiles of the victims, with the heading, "Portraits of Grief." This morning, the Times has done the same thing for the identified victims of the Virginia Tech shootings, with pictures and a few sentences of biography. What terrible, terrible loss!

Yesterday afternoon I needed to make calls at the hospital. So I rode my bicycle home to get a car, and started out. The radio was tuned to NPR, but for some reason the normal program wasn't on. Instead, I heard the ringing words of a preacher. I was confused for a few minutes, but then I realized that this was some sort of memorial service at Virginia Tech. And I was extremely impressed with the preacher, and his theology! He told the crowd that their grief feelings of anger and complaint were quite understandable. For support, he brought up the figure of Job in the Hebrew Scriptures, who reacted in the same way after suffering unimaginable loss. He talked about the significance for Christians that even Jesus felt such emotions, saying on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But, the preacher said, both Job and Jesus remained faithful through their suffering, and he concluded by urging the crowd to do the same.

Do you know who the preacher was? It was our Governor, Tim Kaine! (You may know that Governor Kaine practices the spiritual disciplines of the Roman Catholic tradition, and spent two years doing missionary work in Central America.) What a wonderful job he did, at that Convocation, and later, during interactions with students, families, and the press, in providing leadership and focus for the grieving Virginia Tech community.

Yesterday a woman I had never met came into the church, looking for a place to pray. It was only a few minutes before noon time prayer. She was distraught over the tragedy at Tech, and wondered where God could have been. I spoke as a Christian, centering on the incarnation and the cross: that God was most certainly there, suffering with those who were suffering and dying. That's what we must say of a God who became human flesh, and who suffered and died on the cross. God suffers with us. God embraces us in our grief, with its sadness and anger. Even when we are kicking and screaming, God holds on to us.

Indeed, it is only when we journey honestly and openly and humbly into God's presence in our suffering and death that Easter has any meaning.