Why is Good Friday ‘Good'?
Two thousand years ago, humanity failed. A representative of the most powerful nation in the world folded to popular pressure and executed a religious teacher without blame. That man's own people had turned on him. Some of his closest disciples abandoned or denied him. Angry crowds accused and convicted him. Soldiers mocked, beat and taunted him.
This teacher was crucified, enduring one of the most excruciating executions imaginable. Yet the murdered man never returned the anger of those around him. Instead, he did as he always had. He overlooked all the pain, misery and anger directed toward him and offered forgiveness and grace.
That day an innocent man died in a horrific way. The Christian Gospel of Matthew tells us that nature itself reacted in anguish, saying, "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open."
The man Christians revere as the Son of God – a part of the Trinity himself – descended into the darkest, loneliest and most evil of places to absorb the punishment for the sins of an entire world.
In the Christian tradition, we now refer to this event as "Good Friday." What, exactly, about that Friday seems good?Christians believe the story of Jesus is the story of an all-powerful God humbling himself to become incarnate with His fallen creation. He did so by being born to two poor teenagers. He arrived in a stable for animals. His coming was announced not to kings, queens or religious authorities but to a few simple shepherds.
He lived most of his life in obscurity, a blue-collar professional dedicated to learning a craft, loving others, and learning the Scriptures. When he turned to ministry, it lasted only three years. He never wrote a book. He spent little time with the wealthy and powerful, choosing instead the company of those stricken by disease, hunger, and thirst.
In a time of genuine patriarchy and discrimination, he chose to consort with women, outcasts, prostitutes and the sick. The apostles he chose were not the strongest, but the weakest. Many were illiterate. But their weakness was the point. God has a sense of humor. He doesn't need strength or power, only faith.
The Jewish people had expected a messiah with military authority. But Jesus never raised an army or wielded a weapon. When one of His followers took up arms and cut the ear from a soldier, Jesus scolded that follower and healed the wounded man. Then, this all-powerful God-made-flesh, died the death of a criminal outside a city on the periphery of empire in front of a few followers and a tormenting crowd.
Everything about Jesus was the opposite of what He was supposed to be. So, isn't it perfect that we now consider the single darkest day humanity ever experienced "good"?
Etymologically, the "good" in Good Friday may have originally meant "God" or perhaps "Holy," but even those terms would represent a radical reclamation of the day. Even those who deny Jesus' divinity admit that His execution was brutal and unwarranted. But just as His early followers turned one of the most frightening symbols of violence in history – the Roman cross – into a sign of faithfulness and redemption, we have also chosen to see that Friday not for its failures but for its grace.
Humanity was at its worst. But the all-powerful God of the universe was at His best. He suffered for us as a sign and a sacrifice. He took on the sin we, ourselves, could not erase. He endured a pain and humiliation we can never fully know to reach across the chasm of the universe and remind us there is nothing we can ever do so bad that it cannot be redeemed. And three days after His execution he rose again, victorious over death itself.
And that is why Good Friday was and is good. Because in our greatest despair, there is reason to believe. In our darkest hours, there is light. Faced with all the evil that the natural and supernatural realms could muster, the carpenter on the cross overcame.
God's message to us is not that life will be perfect. Far from it. The night is dark and full of terrors. There is evil in this world and an enemy who prowls like a lion. We will suffer. But our suffering matters. Our sadness matters. Our souls matter.
As we enter this holy weekend, there is much to fear. Our world, as ever, is deeply imperfect. There are those filled with evil and bent on destruction. Our bodies, despite our best efforts in longevity and wellness, are fading away. Great nations will fall. Our victories are temporary.
But our suffering is temporary as well. Our failures will not persist. Evil won't win. The darkness will never extinguish the light. And there is a perfect Creator of the universe who is with us, who has faced greater evil than we have, who is committed to facing our demons with us each day.
A great Christian minister once spoke to us of living together in peace and harmony. He called for a time when "justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Good Friday is good, because that minister was right.
We may not see it in our lifetimes. We may go through generations of darkness and despair. But those generations are a vapor. Good Friday is good, because it was the day all expectations and standards were turned upside down and humanity was forever redeemed.
And the ever-paradoxical faith of Christianity holds that we can now see that day of death for what it truly offered: everlasting life.
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