"Good" Friday - April 10, 2009
“GOOD” FRIDAY
At some point in our lives, every one of us has no doubt asked: How can this day be called Good Friday? What good is here – that we crucified perfect love, that we nailed to the cross one who came to give us life? What about that is good?
Part of the answer has to do with the derivation of words. In Old English good meant “of God.” So Good Friday is God’s Friday.
And therein lies the fuller explanation. It has been suggested that there is a saving possibility in every situation. That is easy enough to accept for many of the irksome little situations that we find ourselves in, but to say that of the crucifixion is large. Only God could take the most despicable situations imaginable and wring some admirable good from them. God took the very worst we humans are capable of – the crucifixion of God’s own Son – and redeemed even that incalculable tragedy. We killed Christ and God answered with Resurrection. Monstrous evil became the gateway for the salvation of the world. The worst thing we ever did, became the best thing God ever did.
We remember the crucifixion in the light of the love for us God demonstrated there, in the light of the good God brought out of it. And so this Friday is called “Good.”
Consider the cross.
Look at what we did.
Then look at what God did.
We can only bow in wonder at such power, such wisdom, and such love. And come to God in penitence and thanksgiving.