Good Friday–it’s the Friday before Easter, the day that is a regular part of many a person’s religious calendar. But why, I’d like to ask, is it good? What is good about Good Friday? From the vantage of Jesus, Friday was anything but good. He, you may recall, was taken by force in the middle of the night, was paraded in front of a number of religious and secular authorities, mistreated, beaten, mocked, flogged, and eventually pinned to beams of wood. This was hardly a good day for Jesus of Nazareth.
It is awful to consider how any human being could be so mistreated. But, and this is the real eye-opener, Jesus was more than a typical human being. On the one hand, Jesus was like us in just about every way. He ate, drank, laughed, cried, developed relationships, and experienced the full range of human emotions. But, and this is what set him apart, Jesus never violated God’s will. He never expressed himself in improper ways. He never operated out of an impure heart or with mixed motives. If Jesus got angry, it was always a righteous indignation. If he loved, it was with perfect love. Jesus, in other words, lived his life as it was originally designed, as God intended it to be. He was what we should all be, fully human.
Yet, this fully human individual, this paradigm of love and compassion, this truth-telling, God-honoring man was mistreated to the extreme. What gives? And if, as we are told, he was God’s unique emissary, the One capable of performing miraculous wonders, why would he endure such hostility? Why would he, the Son of God, allow himself to encounter the worst in human cruelty? Answer: for us.
Good Friday was Bad Friday for the Son of God. Ironically, the only truly good one, Jesus, experienced a bad Friday so that those who, at various levels, are bad would be set free to know and serve their maker. Friday was bad for Jesus. He absorbed in his own person that which we had incurred through our foolish choices. The true light of the world was surrounded by human darkness (ours, not his). Incarnate goodness was treated badly. The penalty for breaking God’s laws and rejecting God’s heart fell on the only person who ever truly kept those laws and reflected God’s heart.
Friday was bad for Jesus so that it would be good for us. While the full implications of Jesus’ rescuing activity would not be enacted and made clear until Easter morning, already by Friday the goodness of God’s love was beginning to swell. Because of Bad Friday, we can celebrate Good Friday. Pretty good deal, huh? Have a great Easter!
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