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Good Friday When I was a child we were always out of school for Good Friday. That was the day that we usually dyed Easter eggs—often at my grandmother’s house, where she didn’t care how much mess we made. Dyeing eggs in anticipation of hunting for them on Easter morning after finding our baskets filled with Peeps and jelly beans and delectable chocolate was always great fun, and so it was easy to think of Good Friday as really “good.” But as I grew older, as I began to hear the narrative, to grasp even a bit what Good Friday was really about, I began to wonder, as I suspect many of you may have, what is it that makes “Good Friday” good? What’s good about Good Friday? That question cuts to the heart of why we’re here. The easy answer, of course, is that we can’t experience the joy of the resurrection at Easter without first experiencing the pain of the crucifixion and death. That answer isn’t wrong...in fact, it is essentially the right answer. But it’s one of those right answers that isn’t very satisfying either, that leaves me, at least, wanting more. It’s the kind of answer that’s just a little too pat, a little too matter of fact to address the dilemma that we Christians face on this holy day—why the suffering, why the cross? Why this way? So what’s good about Good Friday? In our Good Friday liturgy we hear the story of the passion—of Jesus’ crucifixion, suffering and death—as told in the Gospel according to John. This narrative does not spare us. It details vividly the arrest of Jesus, his abandonment by his closest friends, the rejection and derision of the crowds. It depicts the brutality of the crucifixion—the punishment inflicted by the Romans on the lowest members of society when they dared to challenge the powers that be. It ends in apparent defeat, with Jesus’ broken body being laid in a tomb, vanquished and alone. So what’s good about Good Friday? We often hear it said that Jesus died FOR our sins, but it might be more accurate to say that Jesus died BECAUSE of our sins, the sins of the world. Jesus died because he dared to question the domination systems of his day…those forces whether they were political or religious, Roman or Jewish, that worked to oppress the people, that held them in the bondage of poverty and submission. He dared to challenge those systems and the people complicit with those systems. And he dared to suggest that God calls us to a different way. We often speak of the passion of Jesus to refer to his suffering and death. But we should not forget that Jesus had real PASSIONS in his life—he was passionate about his mission, his ministry. He was passionate about what it meant to be a disciple. He was passionate about the Kingdom of God—what the world would be like if God were truly king and earthly rulers were not. It was those passions that drove him to confront the powers that be, to dare to suggest that God’s way was not the world’s way. It was those passions that in a very real way led to his passion, to his death. So what’s good about Good Friday? Jesus’ crucifixion took place because Jesus dared to say NO—no to the powers of oppression and domination, no to those who failed to grasp that their way was not God’s way. If Good Friday is about Jesus saying NO to the powers that be, then Easter is about God saying YES to Jesus—yes to his challenges, yes to his vision, yes to the cross. Easter is God saying that Jesus death is not the end, but the beginning—the beginning of a new life for each of us who will take up our crosses to follow, a new way for the world—a new kingdom. And that takes us back to our question. What’s good about Good Friday? The cross has become the preeminent symbol for Christians, and the cross is also the primary focus of Good Friday. Once a reminder of a cruel punishment, a warning to would-be troublemakers, the cross has become for us an icon, a reminder not only of generous and abundant love that Jesus had for us, a love so great that it led him to terrible suffering and death , but also an invitation for us to follow Jesus. The cross reminds us not only of Jesus’ passion but also of his PASSIONS—loving God, loving others—the Kingdom of God. The cross reminds us that to be Christian—to follow Jesus—is to be dangerous—to dare to challenge those things that hold us back from God’s kingdom, whatever they are. The cross that once was an instrument of degradation and suffering, the cross that was meant to be a sign of Jesus’ impotence in the face of authority, becomes instead for us a symbol of hope and power. The cross points us towards not just Jesus’ passion, but towards his PASSIONS and it invites us to make those passions our own—passion for mission, passion for the poor and the oppressed, passion for justice, passion for God and for God’s kingdom—here and now as well as in the life to come. Perhaps that’s what is good about Good Friday.
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