What’s so good about Good Friday?

“I do not understand. Why do we call this day Good Friday?” At some point today a kid is going to ask me this question. He will be whining about having to tuck his shirt in as we head to church or searching the house for a missing shoe or fighting with his brother over who rides “shotgun” and suddenly he will turn toward me and want to know, “What is so good about Jesus dying? Shouldn’t it be called Bad Friday?”

And in my haste to spin the day along, I will not do well in my answering. I will skip over the hard parts and simply remind him of how it is good that Jesus died for our sins. It is good because he will be resurrected on Sunday and all will be well. Jesus will win.

And the boy who asks this question will be okay with that answer, but he will still not want to tuck in his shirt.

I will think about it later, though. And wish I had answered differently.

You see, my boys have been raised on Jesus Loves Me and Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. They are solid with the idea that God is good and Jesus is with them. But this day? This Good Friday? It perplexes them every year.

And if I am being honest, it gets me too.

This good day is difficult to look at, and I find myself wanting to hurry out of the darkness and run straight for the light.

But maybe that’s not the point. Maybe we need to linger here a bit. So here’s my prayer for us as we ponder the goodness of this Friday and finish our walk toward the celebration of Easter.

Dear Lord,

Slow our hearts today. Help us resist the urge to run through the falling darkness. Good Friday evokes in us this desire to cover our eyes and just wait for the scene to be finished. Don’t let us do that.

Remind us that we need to stand in the dark and feel its blackness. We need to hear the driving nails and the agonizing screams; to see the bloody and the brutal. Oh Lord,  the way you suffered is hard to watch. But hold our eyes there a bit.

Because there’s something you know about this day that we are so quick to forget. The light of Sunday means nothing if we do not feel the dark of Friday. The empty tomb is just a cave full of air if it wasn’t ever filled with death. 

We forget that this matters. We forget that death cannot be conquered if it is not first experienced. We want the joy of the resurrection without the pain of dying. And Lord, you know that will not sustain us in our days.

You know how the days of heartache and pain can disorient us. You know the places we will stand and the way our love will often feel like it is breaking us. And you know how we will need to remember the weight of those words you said to your disciples in that Upper Room.

“This is my body broken for you … this is my blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Those aren’t just dead letters on a page. Good Friday is good because you — Our Lord and Creator — broke yourself and poured out your own blood for the love of us. 

We need to look. We need to see. We need to feel. Lord, slow us down in this day. Let the weight of the cross settle on our shoulders. This is hard. This is heavy.

But. This is what salvation looks like. This is God coming to save his wayward people. I will be their God and they will be my people. This is what it cost you to come and get us.

Lord, let us stay in the dark awhile on this Good Friday. Let us remember the price you paid; the road you walked. You know what it means to suffer. And we need to understand that you get this. Over gravestones, next to bedsides full of crippling sickness, in broken hearts, busted dreams and deep loneliness, help us hear you whisper, “I know. I’ve stood there too.”  

May the darkness of this day remind us that light shines best in the blackest hour of the night. Hold our hearts in this space and let us hear you say it, “I have loved you with an everlasting love. A love deep enough, wide enough and strong enough to endure the cross for the sake of your heart. Sunday is coming, but I need you to see Friday, first.”

And when we are tempted to look away, help us remember that we are children of the living God. A God in whose economy the way up is down, the last are first, the weak are made strong, the meek inherit the earth and the darkness of Friday is indeed declared … good.Alleluia. Amen.

“Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in … he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!” (Hebrews 12:2-3 MSG)