The Friday before the celebration of resurrection day is the day on which the Christian Church remembers the suffering and death of Jesus. But then how did it acquire the designation of “Good” Friday? There are many suggestions, but nothing can be substantiated. Among the Greek orthodox it has been called Holy or Great Friday. Some suggest that it was originally known as Gottes Freitag,(God's Friday) and that this morphed into Good Friday. Some others called it in German, Gute Freitag. The Anglo-Saxons called it Long Friday as it is still called today in Denmark. Another name by which it was known was by the German, Karfreitag, (Sorrowful Friday). None of these explain the origin of the name for the day which we call “Good Friday.” It is likewise difficult to find at what date in history the church first used the term or began to observe the day, “though some sources say it has been observed since 400 AD.” Another said, “Until the 4th century, Jesus’ Last Supper, His death, and His Resurrection were observed in one single commemoration on the evening before Easter. Since then, these three events have been observed separately.” Another simply called the source "ancient” and identified the 4th century as the beginning of some Good Friday practices.(1) Good Friday is a day of mixed emotion. As we follow the Savior on the way to Calvary and observe and hear everything that occurred there, what was the thought process that identified the day as good. Simeon had told Mary that a sword would pierce through her own soul. (Luke 2:35). When she heard the vile words spoken against her Son, and observed the gambling for His garments, that had to hurt. When she saw the blood trickle down His forehead, and heard and observed all that fulfilled the prophecy of Psalm 22, it was certainly not a good day as humans measure days. A Day of Shame In a sense it should be for us a day of shame. Shame that it was our sins that caused the Lord to suffer the anguish in Gethsemane, the sorrow of being betrayed, the loneliness visited upon Him by sleeping disciples in the garden, and fleeing disciples at His capture, the hurt of being denied by a disciple. Yes, shame at the buffeting that we caused Him before the high priest, and in Pilate's court. He suffered the ignominy of being mocked by Herod. We caused His pain on the cross, a mode of capital punishment reserved only for the most vile criminal. If this recounting, plus more, seems like piling on, over play, or overly dramatic, we have not comprehended what Scripture means when it says “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53). We cannot distance ourselves from having caused Him to be forsaken by His friends, and in the cruelest twist of all forsaken by His Father in heaven (Matthew 27:46). The Lord laid on Him the sins of the world (2 Corinthians 5:21). Unless you are not in the world you cannot excuse yourself from responsibility for what He endured! In this regard listen to Luther: “When you feel in your conscience that you are guilty, be very, very careful not to contend with either God or men in an effort to defend or excuse your sin. Rather do this: When God points His spear at you, do not flee from Him; on the contrary, flee to Him with a humble confession of guilt and a plea for pardon. Then God will draw back His spear and spare you. However, the farther you try to flee from God by the denial and excuse of your sin, the closer and more hostile God will follow and press you. Therefore nothing is better and safer than to come before God with a confession of guilt; for so it comes to pass that while God conquers us, we also conquer through Him.” (2) “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 ). A Day of Glory With all that He endured our Lord went quietly without complaint. He did not whine about being mistreated, nor complain about the unfairness. He did not fight back but said, “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father save me from this hour?' But for this purpose I came to this hour” (John 12:37). When he was betrayed by one of His own, he reached out to Judas. When He was captured Jesus told Peter who would have defended Him with a sword to put the sword away. Jesus could ask the Father Who could send legions of angels to deliver Him from this hour, but “How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus” (Matthew 26:54)? Jesus knew why He came into the world! Jesus went as it was prophesied, fulfilling the will of the Father Whose desire is to show mercy. While we are troubled by our sin which caused the Lord's suffering and death on the cross, by the manner that He went and by what He won for us at the cross Jesus put the “GOOD” in Friday! The Law and the Gospel have their particular purpose. They are as different as day and night, but at the cross they come together. We see the Law in all its condemnatory fierceness! There the wages of sin that we earned and deserved were paid to Jesus. On the cross Jesus suffered the wrath of God's judgment against sin and the sinner, though He had no sin. By His death He removed from us the sting of death. Upon the cross the love of God is evident to such as confess their sin and believe the words and promises of God. On the cross God's Son died and reconciled the world unto the Father, “having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:20). Pure Gospel! Paul wrote, “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). On the cross by the merit and death of the Savior “with grief and shame weighed down,” the Heavenly Father turned to us a smiling face. As much as it pains us to look at the cross in one sense just as surely the cross is to us the anchor of our hope, for without the cross there would have been no payment for sin, no resurrection and no restoration of life. With a sigh of relief, we thank the Lord that we are cleansed from sin by the suffering and death of the Savior on the cross! Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. For all who believe and cling to the Christ of the cross in faith, and who eagerly anticipate the glorious confirmation of the resurrection it is indeed GOOD FRIDAY. -Pastor Emeritus Daniel Fleischer (Fridley, MN) 1) On-line sources 2) What Luther Says (CPH)-Vol.I, p.329, para. 970