Good Friday: a day full of anguish almost beyond bearing, yet so necessary for the beauty and joy of Easter.

Today’s readings really focus us in on the suffering and death of Jesus. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews gives some perspective about why we all benefit from this suffering of Jesus, how it made him (and through him, our triune God) a more sympathetic recipient of our prayers. But other than that one slightly brighter note, the lessons are full of pain and suffering.

I never really thought about the incongruity of calling this day “good” until my son commented on it the other day. And I could certainly see his point. In one way, this day would be more aptly called “Bad Friday.” In it, we commemorate the betrayal, torture and death of an innocent man. In fact, the ultimate innocent man. Nothing good about that. But of course, it is called Good Friday because we know that out of this evil, the greatest good ever was done. Jesus willingly submitted himself to this evil and in doing so, he atoned for all our sins.

I really look forward to going to church tonight. The Good Friday service, though sad and disturbing, is also so very beautiful. For the past several years at our parish, we have used a setting of the psalm that is so lovely it makes me ache. It has a middle Eastern sound to it, kind of like some of the Muslim call-to-worship chants, and each verse ends with the cantor singing the Aramaic words for “into your hands I commend my spirit” before the congregation replies with the words in English. If I close my eyes, I feel like I am there in Jerusalem, hearing Jesus’ lament from the Cross.

Then, after reliving the passion and death, after showing our reverence to the cross on which Jesus gave himself up to God's will, we depart in silence. In spite of what we know is coming later, there is always a sense of hopelessness in that departure. The Good Friday service is constructed so that even if you hide from the starkness of it all for the rest of Lent, there's pretty much no escape on that one night. Leaving that service, we are all aware of the price that was paid.