Hi DOD,
Why is Good Friday called Good?
Curious,
Milt
Dear Milt,
Naming the Friday before Easter, the day marking the crucifixion of Jesus, GOOD is peculiar to Western Christendom. Other Christian traditions refer to the day as Great Friday, Holy Friday, or Black Friday.
The “good” of Good Friday can be seen to acknowledge the benefit, “good,” bestowed on the world by Jesus’ death. His death can be understood as the last sacrifice to “pay” for sins, indeed the sins of the whole world, past, present, and future.
Another understanding is revealed in the languages of the British Isles wherein God and Good are sometimes used interchangeably. Consider that “goodbye” is a contraction of “God be with ye.” While not actually using the word “good,” Jesus underscores this point.
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”
Mark 10:17–18
In this case we can understand Good Friday to mean God’s Friday. Good Friday then is seen as pivotal in the Divine Drama in which God becomes fully human: born of a woman, lives a human, if extraordinary, life and dies a very human, if Curial, death. The Resurrection celebrates God’s overcoming human death. The Ascension celebrates that Jesus bears our full humanity into the very heart, the very substance of God. And the Divine Drama is complete.
Good indeed.
Dear Old Dad (DOD)
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