What Makes Good Friday Good?

     I was told tonight of a moving letter written by a church member who had realized what Good Friday meant to him.  As I listened to the recounting of the words that this person used and said, “Amen!”  I was also given pause to think about what Good Friday meant to me. 

     I worry that in modern Christianity, or in predominantly western protestant denominations to be a bit more precise, we have come to a place in which we are all too often satisfied to skip over Good Friday so we can get to the good stuff of Easter.  In a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, we get to spend time enjoying the good news of our salvation.  In remembering Christ’s sacrifice, we are reminded of our failings and a call to be better through a sacrificial existence, modeled by our King.  Sunday morning we get candy and baskets and wear our new Easter outfits… Friday evening if we take time to reflect, we get to think about depressing things, and images that are just too ugly and foreign to comprehend, plus, no candy.  Sunrise service reminds us that “Up From the Grave He Arose”!  Friday reminds us that our shame and sin put Him in the grave in the first place.  Easter Sunday reminds us that Jesus goes to prepare a place for us… Good Friday reminds us that His love was meant to transform us as we are freed from sin and death through His pardon and atonement; and we hate to be reminded that we need those things in the first place.

     But real celebration at Easter cannot be removed from the mourning that precedes it.  In order to truly appreciate the gift of new life, the old life must pass, and that causes pain and fear.  We don’t like change.  This is unfortunately a reality of life.  We come across grieving no matter how much we try to avoid it.  We don’t want things to end.  We have trouble admitting that an end to our lives and constructed comforts is even possible.  However, grief must be honestly encountered and processed before new living can begin… this is true in every instance of loss that we have to cope with.  In meeting Jesus Christ, we are given the opportunity to begin to live a new and eternal life, but it means that we have to let go of the old and finite existence we knew and loved.  This is the lesson that we receive as we hear the Gospel accounts of Christ’s passion.  For out of the death that the world created for Him, life was born anew…  God’s power could not be defeated.   

    But the hope and the truth of Good Friday is that once we can finally allow ourselves to acknowledge the end of one life, a new one can begin.  There is hope evident even in the darkness of Calvary.  For in His love and grace, Jesus has made a way for the people of creation to be reclaimed by the God who loves them.  We are transformed in that act on our behalf from lost and dying souls to restored and treasured children of God.  When the first of the disciples came to the tomb early that third morning, they expected to find death... what they found was hope.  In honoring Good Friday, and sharing in that mourning and release of the past lives and wrongs we have participated in and been forgiven of, we can receive the same.

Your Servant in Christ,

       Bro. Chris