Good Friday. Huh?
Why is it “good?” How could it possibly be good?
- In a culture that is ever so quick to get to the product
- In a culture that is ever so quick to avoid suffering and pain and seek ways to medicate ourselves to avoid pain
- In a culture that is ever so quick to jump to the bunnies and eggs
- In a culture that is ever so quick to commercialize, capitalize, and consumerize
- In a culture that is ever so quick to jump to the good news of Easter Sunday and Resurrection
- In a culture that is ever so quick to minimize the extent of Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion
- In a culture that is ever so quick to sanitize and ‘disneyize’ the events of the brutal death of a man
- In a culture that is ever so quick to grab hold of grace as if we are entitled to it
Today matters.
Dark Friday matters.
His death matters.
There is no Resurrection Sunday without Crucifixion Friday.
So, let’s not be so quick to bypass this day. There’s a reason why in the Christian tradition – this day and service is considered the longest and darkest day of the year.
Let it be long.
Let it be dark.
Let it be silent.
Let it be uncomfortable.
Death is always uncomfortable – especially when we’re complicit in this death.
While the good news of our beauty are clearly exemplified in the glorious news of the Resurrection…the depths of our darkness and depravity are also exposed in the last days of Jesus’ life and crucifixion.
And once we understand, if even for a glimpse, the depths of our depravity and brokenness, the amazing depth of God’s grace and mercy is that much more understood and experienced. We understand that our broken image can be restored by the Creator of that original beauty.
Thank you, Jesus, for this day.
For Dark Friday.
For Holy Friday.
For the cross, sacrifice, and atonement.
Thank you, Jesus, for your life.
Thank you God that you have redeemed this day to be good.
Isaiah 53
Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?
The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.
He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn’t say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he’d never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn’t true.
Still, it’s what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him.
- What would we do if we only had one week to live? Jesus borrowed a donkey, washed dirty feet, and got crucified.
- On door prizes, pony rides, and gazillion eggs for Easter when the Gospel ought to be enough.
EUGENE CHO 
I love that in Lenten tradition this was called “God’s Friday.” He is sovereign!!
I like that. I don’t have a traditional church experience that included Lent or Good Friday…except we did do the last seven words…seven sermons (full-length) in one night.
God’s Friday. I like that a lot.
thank you for the reminder…
Just heard a comment on the radio this morning that “good” in Good Friday is an archaic word for “holy”. That makes more sense…
thank you.
i have been trying al week to put this into proper words.
mine ended up messy.
twice.
thank you.
appreciated.
I like the term Dark Friday, never heard it put that way before. Makes much more sense.
While I don’t know the history of the title, “Good” seems most appropriate to me. It is an ugly truth that our salvation required the death of Jesus, and nothing that we say or do can change that. To gloss it over is to do it an injustice and to do damage to Jesus. But Jesus’ act was good, what happened on that day was good. In one day, Jesus reversed death and set the entire creation on the path to be made new and whole again.
That was a Good day.
Amen! Amen! Amen!
http://thechurchjester.blogspot.com/2011/04/whats-good-about-good-friday.html
Eugene,
Thanks for the reminder that ‘Good Friday’ should be a bit ugly, a bit disturbing, and something we should embrace.
Amen.
Just notifying you, tragically last Thursday, a young Korean girl died in an accident on her bicycle at the University of Minnesota.
Kimberly Yeong Sil Hull http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/120549294.html
There was another article too, I can’t find.
She was adopted at 5 months. She also grew up some in Santa Fe New Mexico and Switzerland.
She would have turned 26 years old tomorrow, Tuesday. I don’t know what one can say when a life is taken from someone so young.
It sounds like, sad as it sounds, a truck, dump truck in fact in the morning hours collided with each other, basically the truck turning over into her lane cutting off her right of way. The poor poor girl.
Just as my avatar is a yellow bike, I do bike frequently and these tragedies happen to often. I am always very very cautious when I am around any traffic. I’m sure she felt comfortable. I’ve been a few times around the U up there. I will walk my bike if there is a lot of traffic around.
I use to ride up to the U, you know, the same way, someone has obviously followed me to this site, the Chinese use to bully me at the U, then one day, I rode up to the U of Minnesota on my bike on the road from Fort Snelling and what did I see?? A handful of Monks cloaked in orange or saffron gowns, “Na Mo Amito Fo”, but these guys, I’m rather sure, they were Tibetan Buddhist Monks. And then, it put it all into perspective for me. The Chinese Government oppresses Tibetans, those Chinese women would hassle me. Now I know some girl, Kieran, don’t know how it is spelled, not sure what nationality that name could be but she is from Far East Asia, one of those countries.
Pahoua Vang, is a dear in St. Paul, I have always adored. But so young, but she still is grand and I am the Original Gran Torino! Well, maybe …. well, some similarities.
Eugene talks about turning 40, life for me did not start in some ways, until I worked with the Hmong, in a middle school where the majority of kids are Hmong.
And if from Bloomington Minnesota, I ride towards the Mall of America and then East to St. Paul, the Hmong still like me and meet me. During the Summer, they’d start going to the park where I go during the summer, Fort Snelling near the airport, right before you go to St. Paul. St. Paul is great, I don’t care for Minneapolis at all but the rest of the area is nice.
Bless the Hmong, Bless Pahuoua, Bless this poor girl Audrey Hull http://www.mndaily.com/2011/04/25/audrey-hull-free-spirit-%E2%80%9Cwho-lived-moment%E2%80%9D
You might like to meditate on that subject with a short slow motion movie that I did inspired by Good Friday, a poem about the darkness that surround us.
“Dance the darkness”
Reblogged this on Soli Deo Gloria and commented:
Good thoughts on Dark/Holy/Good Friday from Eugene Cho!