I can remember asking my mom as a kid, "Why is it called Good Friday?" It completely baffled me. I'd gone to Sunday school long enough to know that Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday.
He was arrested, put through a trial, denied by his own, whipped, paraded through Jerusalem and crucified, dying after six hours of agony. What was so good about that? My mom must have given me an adequate response, that it's a "good" day because if Jesus hadn't died than he couldn't have risen. But I don't think I bought it. Not then. Not now.
I confess, as a believing Christian, I find Good Friday one of the toughest days of the year. I have celebrated it in various ways, none too happily. I have sung in choirs through a three-hour service. I have prayed my way through the stations of the cross. I have sat in a pew in a church near my office, meditating over the last words of Christ. And I have skipped the whole thing, far preferring the alleluias and flowers and jelly beans and chocolate eggs of Easter.
But I have to admit in my struggles with faith, the shadowy Good Friday moments count as much as those blissfully sunny Easter days (and here in the northeast, when is Easter ever warm and sunny?). When I pray, it's the hard stuff that gets me really focused. A 42-year-old friend dies of cancer. "Why, God, why?" I ask, storming the heavens. A hard-working dad loses the job he was sure he was meant for. "What was that all about?" I wonder. An impoverished country gets pummeled by a devastating earthquake. "Have mercy, Lord," I pray.
Source: Washington Post - On Faith
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