Good Friday: What is it and what’s so Good about it?!
What exactly is Good Friday and what is so good about it?! Jesus died and we put him there. He died in the most terrible way imaginable and did nothing wrong. As far as we are concerned, we killed our best hope for freedom because now he is dead and that isn’t anything to be happy or good about!
Good Friday is a day of extremes. It is a day of great and overwhelming sadness and a day of hope and joy. It is a day of suffering and agony and a freedom from them. It is a day of powerful evil and of far greater love, day of death and life, of end and of beginning. This is Good Friday. It is on this day that we are reminded of our sin and humanity. So often we are the throngs of people singing hymns and giving glory to God as on Palm Sunday and we are the same angry mob that demanded Jesus death on the cross; mocking jeering and spitting at our Lord and Savior. Yet, in all our sin and hatred not once did Jesus despise us. Rather he looked on his people with all the more love and compassion.
Only Jesus could make something as ugly as the cross into something so beautiful that it is one of the most recognized and venerated symbols today. His heart broke for us as on that cross he showed us the power of perfect love. It is said that love isn’t love until you give it away and Jesus said “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for a friend”. Jesus’s life was his love and he gave it away. It is sobering to think that after all I have done and will do that someone as perfect, powerful and great as God would look on me with love. To realize that he knows my name and calls me, and that he would call me friend, call me child is nothing short of amazing.
On Good Friday we have the opportunity to venerate the cross by kneeling down touching or kissing the cross; in doing so we can bring our troubles, our burdens, our joys, blessings, hopes, and dreams and give them to Jesus in a very real way. Jesus said “Come to me all you who are weary, you who are broken and burdened. Come to me and I shall give you rest; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. It is at the foot of the cross that all are equal and all can come; the rich and poor, sick and healthy, young and old.
No one has everything, but everyone has something and each of us are called to use what gifts we have been given to be salt and light for all around us; both around the block and around the world.
So Good Friday is Good in part because of it was on this day that through His death on the cross we might come to have life eternal, sin and death were defeated. Good ultimately prevailed over Evil. Jesus’ death and what would happen after was also made true when he said “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life will lose it and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life”. In his death Jesus’ body and blood are the true bread and true wine given for the whole world. His death also has produced much fruit in the people today who follow Christ and his teachings. For more than 2000 years, people have come to believe and the faith has continued to survive, grow and even thrive throughout the years despite difficulties and trials. What would have happened and how would life be today if Jesus had saved himself from death on the cross, and didn’t die for our sins on that day? The world may never know and even though things are far from perfect, I thank God he did. That is Good.
Amen