"Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last." ~ Matthew 27:50

Good Friday is traditionally the Friday before Easter, the anniversary of Jesus' crucifixion. In the Roman Catholic Church, today is a day of fasting, abstinence, and penance. At Marble, we gather our hearts and minds for worship and prayer, recalling with gratitude the words of the Apostle Paul, "But God proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

The Greek Church calls it "Great Friday."  Other faith traditions use "Holy Friday" or "Dark Friday." Germans call it Karfreitag, or "Mourning Friday." This seems appropriate considering how Jesus' first disciples must have felt after witnessing those horrific events unfold. As Dr. Brown reminded us on Sunday, the disciples thought their journey with Jesus was going to end triumphantly. Instead, they left Golgotha defeated and with heavy hearts.

So why do we refer to this day as "Good Friday?"

Its origin is unclear. Some scholars think it was originally called "God's Friday” (Gottes Freitag), while others maintain different opinions. Regardless of its origin, when you consider Jesus' betrayal, arrest, mockery, trial, beating and crucifixion, it seems rather odd to attach the word "good” to any those events.

"Good Friday is an unrelenting day," says author Fleming Rutledge in her book, The Seven Last Words from the Cross: 

It is unrelenting like the regimes of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and many, many others who throughout human history have mercilessly put people to death by torture. We in twenty-first-century America are shocked and horrified to hear of the terrible things that were done to people in the dungeons of men like Saddam. We can scarcely imagine these things, living as we do in a country where inhuman behavior is against the law.

And yet, Rutledge rightly points out, crucifixion was not against the law during Jesus' time. It was an accepted form of public execution approved and conducted by governmental leaders. Because it was common to see one, two, or even three executions per day, the people had grown accustomed to them. Some even became apathetic. Many would walk right by a man in agonizing misery and think nothing of it. Such indifference seems deplorable to us and even to God: "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?" (Lamentations 1:12).

During the Lenten season, my wife and I enjoy reading a little devotional book titled A Season for the Spirit by Episcopal priest Martin L. Smith. It is a text that enriches our spiritual journey to the cross with its theological and spiritual insights. In Smith's section on Good Friday, he aptly describes Jesus' arrest and crucifixion as a "mixture of dread and of agonized yearning." For Smith, what makes each Good Friday "good" is when the Spirit ushers us to "reestablish our contact with that inmost core of recalcitrant evil, enmity, and impotence where we are sisters and brothers of the most depraved and lost."

In other words, on Good Friday we must return to the foot of the cross. It is there Christ meets us and embraces us with his pierced hands. We feel his tender touch and hear his whisper, "Now take up your cross and follow me."