Observing Good Friday

Like many of you, my church did not observe Good Friday or other events in Holy Week except, of course, Easter.  The day and remembrance of the death of Jesus had been observed since the early centuries in the Common Era but many evangelicals when I was growing up did not follow the Church Calendar in our personal practice or with our faith communities. 

Thanks be to God, and to thoughtful church leaders, many of us have been blessed to experience the gift of the rhythms of the Church year by year.  We had much to learn from other Christian traditions and in these days it’s much more common to see more Christians including services that remember the journey of Jesus. 

On Good Friday the death of Jesus unfolds and the Church bears witness.  It begins early in the morning with “legal” accusations from the Sanhedrin and brief conversations with Pontius Pilot and his sentencing. He is whipped, he is given a cross, he is nailed to it.  As we imagine and listen to his suffering, we hear what he says to disciples, to criminals, to his mother, and to God. He dies. He is carried. He is buried, and this is called Good Friday. 

Why does this terrible, horrible, dark day of death carry the name “good?” Because for Christians, the reality of it found its way into our hearts.  This day of sacrificial love awakens us to the very nature of God who is in us and with us and who always suffers with us.  We call it good because we see life flows from death. We see the fallen rise. We see God’s pattern of death and resurrection.  Christians can see a new creation.  We can see a new community.  We see the eternal invitation to join with God in his suffering for the world’s sake. 

We glimpse and sense what here, within and around, and what is beyond... so far beyond. We see that we are redeemed and being redeemed. We see that all things are being made new.   

We can see the mystery... the Paschal Mystery, it’s been rightly called.   We can try to name that mystery and we’ve been at it throughout the centuries, which is fine and very human.  Just remember, won’t you, that once you tried to name the mystery of God suffering on the cross you’ll know you’ve fallen short. 

I hope you’ll attend to and bear witness to Jesus in this Good Friday. Don’t get stuck trying to understand (do that with someone with whom you like to wrestle around the hard questions later).  On Good Friday.  See Jesus, be present to Jesus, know what took place and what is taking place in you. 

Written by Burt Burleson, D.Min.

University Chaplain

Baylor University