Good? Friday.

"Your joking about calling it Good Friday, right? I told you the part about the nails?" -Jesus

This is a tweet from a comedian that I follow on Twitter. And it got me thinking.

When you read the story of "Good" Friday, there doesn't seem to be much Good about it at all. So on a surface level, there is a bit of truth in that tweet. "You're joking, right? Good? What could possibly be qualified as good??"

After all, it is a story of betrayal, denial, injustice, violence, pain, suffering, mocking, scoffing, death.

A man is arrested after one of his closest friends turns him in. Another close friend, after swearing loyalty, denies that he ever knew the accused. Upon being taken to the highest authorities, the man is condemned though he has not done anything outwardly wrong. A confused judge hands him over to a mob. He is mocked, spit upon, and beaten within an inch of his life while scads of onlookers deem him worthless. He is stripped down, and what is left of his unrecognizable body is hoisted onto wooden posts, attached with nails, and displayed for all to see. And then, in the most vulnerable position anyone could ever be in, suffering the worst kind of execution the human race has ever thought of, he is mocked still, until he takes his last breath.

It is a heart-wrenching, pit-in-the-stomach, tears-burning kind of a story. Everything goes from bad to worse, so where is the Good?

The Good is in the purpose. The Good is in the implications. The Good is that it didn't end there.

The Good is in realizing that it should have been us, but it wasn't.

Every year, I remember, meditate on, and wrestle with the story of Good Friday, knowing that without it the end wouldn't be the end. And I would not be able to repeat with confidence, "it is finished".