Good Friday – 2021
What a “supreme paradox.” How strange. How odd. How queer. How totally unexpected. How different.
We now call the day Jesus was crucified, “Good.” It was NOT always so.
And of course, many people wonder WHY? Why-good? Why, Good Friday?
A great many scholars believe this name simply “evolved”—as language always does…slowly over time…especially over the millennia.
They point to the earlier designation, of “God’s Friday,” as its root…which it probably was…GOD’S FRIDAY makes perfectly good sense…
God had ownership over the entire day. And still does! God was and is in complete control.
Then, ever so slowly over time, it became GOOD FRIDAY.
Because for humankind…our salvation was procured.
Humankind was freed from condemnation. Humankind felt freedom and release. It was God’s doing on our behalf.
(This seems like a reasonable conjecture, given that “goodbye” evolved from God BE with you.)
From saying, “God BE / with you” to the later shortened version of “Goodbye!”
Things change slowly over time. They always have.
Whatever its origin, the current name of this “holy day” offers a fitting lesson to those of us who “assume” that “good” must mean “happy.”
A happy day because God is about to act.
A happy day because Jesus died for us and for our sins?
A happy day because humankind has been redeemed.
A happy day because God loves us THAT MUCH.
A happy day because God is LOVE…and love trumps hatred every time.
And yet, we find it hard to imagine a day “marked by sadness” as being any kind of a good day.
If anything, it is a day of “discomfort.” A day of “sorrow and sadness.” A day of “darkness.” A day of fear, trembling, and mourning.
Of course, the church has always understood that the day commemorated as Good Friday was “anything but happy.”
It certainly was not a happy or a good day for Jesus.
How could it be when he turns his failing eyesight down to the people standing on the trash-strewn ground covered with blood and human waste surrounding him.
It was certainly not a happy or a good day for the women who stood at the foot of the cross…watching and observing him dying in great pain and discomfort.
It was certainly not a happy or a good day for Jesus’ disciples…scared, frightened, scattered and in hiding.
Nor was it a good day for his many, many followers who saw their hopes and dreams come crashing down around them…and dashed into the Roman occupied soil.
EXTREME Sadness, PROFOUND mourning, DAYS of fasting and prayer… have been its focus since the early centuries of the churches life.
A fourth-century church manual, entitled the “Apostolic Constitutions,” called Good Friday a “day of mourning, not a day of festive Joy.”
Ambrose, the fourth-century archbishop called it the “day of BITTERNESS on which we fast.”
Many Christians have historically kept their churches unlit or draped in dark cloths.
Historically it has been a day of darkness and shadows…
FAR from “a day of celebration.”
That is why the eucharist is not observed! We do not CELEBRATE this day.
Processions of penitents have walked in black robes or carried black-robed statues of JESUS and the Virgin Mary and black draped crosses…even coffins have been in procession.
People have been publicly whipped, stripped and beaten…and even, mock crucifixions have been held.
And worshippers have walked the “Stations of the Cross,” praying and singing their way – past 14 images representing Jesus’ steps along the Via Dolorosa to Golgotha.
Yet, despite—indeed because of—its sadness, its horror, and all of the atrocities surrounding it – Good Friday – is truly good.
Its sorrow is a godly sorrow.
It is good, because through death there is life.
It is about the goodness of our God…who loves us and cares for us so much.
It is about our God who embraces and loves us beyond our comprehension…and beyond our ability to love one another.
He loves us. And his love was definitely shown on this day.
Amen.