by Rev. Dr. Mathew C. Chacko

Friday of the Holy Week is described as Good Friday, Holy Friday and Great Friday.

• What is so good about this day?
• What is so great about this day?
• What is so holy about this day?

1. Good Friday Was not so Good to the Disciples and Followers of Christ

In fact, it was a gloomy day, a day of sadness, frustration and failure for the disciples and other close associates of Jesus of Nazareth. They may have forgotten Jesus telling them that he will rise again on the third day, when they saw Jesus being forcefully taken away and abused by the enemies.

God's Friday may have become Good Friday as "God be with you" became "goodbye". Or the word Kar in German or Care in the sense mourning in English may have changed to Good. Mourning Friday may have become Good Friday.

2. Good Friday is a day of reflection.

It is participation in the sufferings of Christ. It is walking with Jesus like Mary, his mother, John the beloved disciple, and the ever grateful Mary Magdalene, from the time of his arrest to his dying and beyond, as it is pictured in Mel Gibson's 'Passions of the Christ' and in several other places. Let us take time to be with Jesus this day, via Dolorosa, meditating on the mystery of God dying in order to free humankind from the grips of death.

3. Good Friday is the day of the death of our death.

Because Jesus died, we do not have to die. We were created by God's love to eternally live in fellowship with him. We chose to disobey him, transgress his commandment, not to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree. Adam and Eve did it. Saturday evening we pray, "From the tree of knowledge Adam stretched out his hand and ate the fruit in which death was hidden; and our Lord ascended the Cross and tasted death for him and restored him to the place of his inheritance." [ The Book of Common Prayer, Tr. Bede Griffiths, p. 280] If it were you or I in Adam's or Eve's place, we would have done the same. We still do it. We do not trust God. We do not believe Him, we do not obey him. We are not loyal to Him. These were Adam's crimes. So is ours. Therefore, Good Friday should be a day of mourning for us, not for Jesus' sake, but for our sake, for our own sins. "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children". [Luke 23:28]

4. On Good Friday Death was conquered.

Death was destroyed. Death was overcome. There is no more death for the believer. Death swallowed Jesus, but He was too much for it. He went into the dark recesses of death and plundered the dark places of death freeing all captives, beginning with Adam and Eve. This became a Great Day and a Holy Day! This day of death of Jesus, therefore, has become a day of Victory over death for the followers of Jesus the Christ. "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. "O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" 1 Corinthians 15: 22 & 55]

5. How could Jesus' death on the Cross save me who was born 2000 years after his salvific death?

When Jesus prayed before his death in his High Priestly prayer in John's Gospel 17: 20 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word; --- I was on his mind. God who sees the past and the future as present saw me. My salvation was secured in Jesus two thousand years before I was born!. Not only me the entire creation came into focus when Jesus prayed to the Father in this occasion.