The author Elie Wiesel, a survivor of Auschwitz, tells the story of how the SS hanged two Jewish men and a youth in front of the whole camp. The men died quickly, but the death throes of the youth lasted for half an hour.
"Where is God? Where is He?" someone asked from the back of the crowd of onlookers. As the youth still hung in torment in the noose after a long time, the man called again, "Where is God now?" And then the writer heard a voice within himself answer: "Where is He? He is hanging there on the gallows . . . . . "
The story later inspired the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann when he was writing his book, The Crucified God. "Any other answer would be blasphemy," he wrote. "There cannot be any other Christian answer to the question of this treatment."
If we ask "Where is God this Good Friday?", the answer might be that He is with the suffering people of Madrid, He is broken and maimed in the hospitals, He is mourning in the graveyards; that He is with those hanging from the bridge of Fallujah, and among the victims of sectarian and political killings in Kerbala, Tikrit and Baghdad. We might hear a voice within telling us that He is among the victims of mindless racism, that He is with those who are being discriminated against and pushed to the margins because they come from North Africa or because they are Muslims.
It is worth remembering today that both Christians and Muslims refuse to concede that death had the last word on the Cross. In their different ways, they refuse to accept that humiliation, scorn and ridicule triumphed at the moment Christ was crucified: Muslims believe that because of God's love Jesus survived the efforts to crucify him and that he is still alive, awaiting his return at the end of time; Christians hold that the end of the passion story is not on the Cross on the afternoon of Good Friday but at the empty tomb on Easter morning.
With this shared hope, whatever their differences in faith and theology, Christians and Muslims of good intention have more to offer together than the extremists and the prophets of doom at the margins of both religious traditions. When the words of the reasonable are not silenced, when the voices of those who refuse to stop loving in the face of desolation continue to be heard, then hope has not faded.
The tragedy of Madrid - and the tragedies of New York, Washington, Casablanca, Istanbul and all the other cities devastated by extremists - deeply wound the soul of humanity. Those tragedies force us to call out afresh this Good Friday: "Where is God today?" The answer must be seen in the faces of the victims and must be heard in the voices of those who call out for Christian and Muslim to continue the process of dialogue.
For without that dialogue between Muslims and Christians only the extremists will be heard, death will have the final word, and life's hopes will be in danger of being quenched.