Good Friday Homily - April 10, 2009
So the question on everybody’s mind on Good Friday - understandable, given the circumstances and mood of the day - is “Why do we call it ‘Good’ Friday?”
In other cultures, it goes by names that actually seem in line with the day. In Germany, for example, it’s “Mourning Friday.” In France and Italy it’s “Holy Friday,” and in Denmark (I think it was), “Long Friday.” (Parenthetically, I read that Long Friday came from the interminable length of the services on those days - remember that one of the main services for this day in the Protestant tradition is the 3-hour service at midday, and that’s in addition to our service for tonight! But “Long Friday” may also refer to the way grief seems to last forever as we’re experiencing it - an explanation I find much lovelier.)
At any rate, and as I said, those are names that certainly seem more in line with the day’s events, in a way that “Good Friday,” at least at first glance, does not.
There are a few theories as to why we call today “Good Friday,” the first two more etymological. According to one, “good” was an archaic word for “holy,” and so it was actually more like “Holy Friday.” A similar explanation is that “good” and “God” come from the same word (people point here to the way the valediction “God go with you” became “goodbye”). So, in that case, people would have understood it more like “God’s Friday.”
But a third explanation says that it was always supposed to be “Good Friday,” and “good” refers to the good that comes to us as a result of Jesus’ death on the cross.
Along these lines, I recently came upon a children’s song that attempts to explain this meaning in a kid-friendly way, and, as often happens, it made more sense than many of the adult explanations I’ve read about it. The lyrics of part of it go like this:
Do you see why Good Friday’s good, Good Friday good, good Friday good?
Do you see why Good Friday’s good?
When it seems so sad?
Things that seem so sad
Are not always bad.
When Christ died, He rose from the grave.
We’re no longer sad.
I was especially struck by that line: “Things that seem so sad are no always bad.” Good Friday is about the hope that something good is always lurking in even the most terrible, hopeless circumstances. We may not see it right away. We may not see it for a while. But it’s there, waiting until we have faith and vision enough to discover it.
And if lesson lesson is true for these events, then it’s surely true for all the terrible things that we face in our lives. So may today remind us to have faith, as the song and the day instruct, that “Things that seem so sad are not always bad.” Amen.
