What is So Good About this Friday?

I belong to a liturgical church. We spend three days this week moving from the season of Lent into the season of Easter.

The second of these three days, today is called Good Friday. We spend today remembering some very painful, challenging events. Many people find it particularly ironic, and confusing, to call today Good Friday.

Why is Good Friday specifically designated as good? Many people believe it is because of our changing understanding of the word good.

We currently think of good as part of a range with better and best. We read good as somewhere between bad and great. Historically, good meant something deeper than what we mean today. When Good Friday became Good Friday, good meant something like holy or spiritual. Good Friday is more like good or evil than like good or poor.

Good Friday can be a day for us to share our mourning and loss. The time we spend together can feel solemn and slow. It is an opportunity to reflect on sacrifice and pain that is part of our spiritual life.

Good Friday is the midpoint, maybe the midnight, of our three day transition. Together we acknowledge we have not met our own expectations. Together we recognize we are not whole, but broken. Together we desire to be restored to wholeness. Together we look for ways we can become who we have the potential to be.

Good Friday is good, not because it feels good, but because it is holy. We face ourselves, and each other, and see how life really is. We are not perfect. We help each other, we do each other some good.

We visit the place of death, and new life begins.

When do you recognize your own brokenness?

How are you restored to wholeness?

[Image by Seabird NZ]