So I was thinking after the Good Friday service today and was a put aback by the complete change in atmosphere after the solemn service. I expressed my concern and got a response more or less about looking forward to the festivity on Easter Sunday.
I have to say, though, that I think that Good Friday is just as important as Easter Sunday. Good Friday is good for meditating on God’s amazing love and how he went through all that suffering (that in itself is subject for another post) for us and for our sins. This has a two-fold illustration:
- The severity of sin, that Christ needed to go through such suffering in order to atone (pay for) sin
- God’s love for us: that He would go through all that for the sole purpose of saving us, that if only one soul would be the result of Christ’s suffering that He would still be willing to go to the cross for one person
Easter Sunday’s implication are rather obvious: Jesus’ victory over sin, celebration of new life that we have, etc. This is what we mostly focus on.
Is this sounding familiar? What about God’s Justice and Love? People usually emphasize just one or the other and honestly? Both those approaches are wrong. God is Just and punishes sin. At the same time He is Love and forgives all. He is not just one or the other, nor is one more important than the other.
In the same way, I think that Good Friday has been understated in its importance. Good Friday is about Christ’s sacrifice to free us from sin. It shows His love for mankind in his suffering, suffering for all and for each. Maybe it’s time to put Good Friday next to Easter Sunday in its place on center stage.
Meditatively,
Tim
Update (03.31.08 )
ehsdrunklord on the seizetheword wordpress site has written a very insightful, elegant post that is along the lines of what I am trying to say here
Sons of Aslan 
Would it help if Crossroads actually did things for Lent as a fellowship? I think we can take it without worrying about it being a “downer”. After all, if that’s something we won’t tolerate, then how much will we stand thinking about Christ entering into our lives, our thoughts, our decisions in light of Malachi 3?
i dont disagree with you in that yeah, Good Friday is just every bit as important as Easter. and yes, solemnity has its place in that, and reflection, and meditation, and all that. but i dont think that one necessarily has to go around all sad all day in order to fully appreciate that fact. i find so much joy in the fact that God loved us enough to have Jesus suffer like that, and that God even cares about us at all, seeing as how we are so depraved and unworthy that even our best efforts come nowhere near His standards for holiness. People reflect on and internalize and express things in different ways, and i dont think there is necessarily a single cut-and-dried approach to how one should go about internalizing and appreciating the fact of God’s sacrifice.
glad to hear your thoughts. hope you are asleep already…
For me, there is also the message about how in this too, we are to pick up our cross and follow. Of course, we can’t save the world, but we can know, in the words of the poet William Wordsworth, “the faith that looks through death” and doesn’t try to look past it or around it.