Good (?) Friday

When you woke up this morning, did you say “TGIF – Thank God it’s Friday!” as many have done over the years on Fridays when they were looking forward to the weekend?

But this Friday isn’t just “any” Friday. It’s different. It’s Friday in Holy Week. A Friday that many refer to as Good Friday. That’s a strange way to talk about a day when Jesus the man, raw from the lashes of a whip, was laid out, arms stretched and bound with ropes to the rough surface of a wooden cross beam, wrists pierced with sharp spikes, feet nailed on a wooden beam, his exhausted body craving release from his suffering, his spirit grieving by the rejection and betrayal of others? What could possibly be “good” about any of that?

It would be a lot easier to forget the relevance of this day in general. And it would be a lot easier, in light of the political upheavals around us, to say that there’s little or nothing “good” about this day.

Perhaps an answer lies in the word ‘good’? Other parts of the world have different words for this day – some Germans refer to today as ‘karfreitag,’ (the ‘kar’ being an obsolete ancestor of ‘mourning’). Elsewhere, some parts of the world call today “Mourning Friday,” putting attention on the disciples who grieved and mourned. And then there are those who follow the belief that this day was originally called “God Friday,” hypothesizing that today is “good” because Jesus was demonstrating his love for humanity by offering his life.

But if that is so, why die in such a brutal manner? Why die so young? Why take on the sinfulness of all humanity on a deathbed after a fruitful life of showing and teaching people the way to God?

Good Friday is unresolved. It’s a tragic and terrible day.
War, threat of the loss of democracy and personal crises make today even more terrible and tragic.
But, regardless of what we call this day, it is a day when we face reality head-on … when we are fully conscious that the Christian walk is seldom easy, and at the same time, are aware of Grace in God’s unconditional love.

Titus Brandsma was a university President in the Netherlands during WW11. Arrested by the Nazis, placed in a concentration camp, isolated in an old dog kennel, tortured daily, his guards amused themselves by ordering him to bark like a dog when they passed by him. Eventually Titus died from the torture. What the Nazis didn’t know was that Brandsma kept a diary during that time, writing between the lines of print in an old prayerbook. It was there that his poem to Jesus was found: “The lovely way that you once walked has made me sorrow-wise. Your love has turned to brightest light this night-like way of mine. Stay with me Jesus, only stay. I shall not fear if, reaching out my hand, I feel that You are near.”

Perhaps Good Friday can be a day when we remind ourselves that ,in the Christian understanding of hope, nothing, not even death, can overwhelm the love God has for each person.

Perhaps then, this day is not an ending. Rather, it is a day of a new beginning.
TGIF. Thank God It’s Friday.

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© June Maffin
www.medium.com/@junemaffin
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Photo under words: Web Entwicklern (Pixabay) used by permission.