I can't say this for too much longer but for most of my life I've been a non-believer in the Christian sense. When I was 19 that all changed, but before then I had some really good developmental years to form some opinions and make some (hopefully mature) observations about the world around me. One general observation I'd made by that point was that many Christian traditions & celebrations seemed odd and were on the list of reasons of why I'd never become a Christian. On a more specific note, I never understood the Good Friday thing, and I may not fully understand it years later but here's a go on what I've come to think of it.
I recall a few months into my new found faith I had heard people calling the Friday prior to Easter "Good Friday" and for some reason they were really excited about this season and this Day. I'd heard of Good Friday before but I didn't really associate it with Easter, or Jesus...prior to being a Christian I didn't really associate most things I saw in christianity with Jesus (that is a whole other post for another time). Now that I had an encounter with Jesus, I was trying to make everything in my life about Jesus. This 'Good' Friday was a day as Christians that we are to celebrate Jesus' torture and death!? really??? That perplexed me, I had been learning about how awesome this Jesus in the Bible was, how much He loved me (and everyone), how much I really loved Him and what He had done for me and everyone else; there I stood around a bunch of people who seemed excited that He got the shi...everything beat out of him and was hammered to the best torture/killing device the Romans could come up with (and they had put research into this) and was left to slowly suffocate to death. "Is that really worth celebrating?" I remember thinking.
There are times, seasons in my life that I wish had turned out another way, that I'm not proud of or that it would be nice, maybe, if it could be written into my life’s story another way. Sometimes because of petty things- I didn't get what I wanted, someone at work wasn't happy with me or other childish, self-centered thinking were the cause of my feeling. Other times, it was because of encountering those areas in life no one wants to come across, the tragedies that can break us all. Over the years, a couple of times, I've felt like life beat the shit out of me. For me the biggest has been the three times that my wife has fought cancer. No one wants to hear the 'c' word, and when it is close and is someone you love deeply, the wound is that much more deep.
One of my favorite writers, C.S. Lewis, once wrote about hating cancer. When I first read his words, I didn't understand how one could hate something so nebulous but now I can understand a little more where he is coming from. Thankfully, today my wife is healthy and cancer free. As much as we'd like to wipe those seasons of our life away however, they are still real. While it isn't something that we talk about every day or to everyone all the time, it is part of our story. In that, it is a part of the story of what God has done, and is doing in our lives. And, the story is good, even with all the mess, pain, doubt...the whole of it.
I recall hearing from a person once that they didn't necessarily dislike the stories that Christian's told of their lives/faith it was what they left out. It was that they didn't tell the whole story, which in turn, was a lie and they didn't like the lie. The christians they had encountered had left parts out, not because of discretion or that it wasn't pertinent to what was being shared but because those parts were the difficult, dark parts of the story that the person who had lived them decided they didn't want to include. Nobody's story is perfect- including God's (read through the Bible, it has ton's of screw-ups) and that is why we have a Good Friday, and a Resurrection Sunday that follows.
I think it comes to this, on its own Good Friday is a very sad day; it is a dark day on the spot of humanity really. When coupled with Easter however, and an understanding not only of the goodness of Jesus, but why He came and what His mission was Good Friday, as brutal as it was, is part of an overall story that is so much more. And it is good. Some may say that because of how brutal Friday was, we should just skip over it, pretend it didn't happen, that we should just move on to Sunday and wear pastel colors and hunt for eggs. I'm sure that some do that, and in doing so, they change the story of who Christ is, and what Easter is about.
After 18 years of being a Christian, I can answer the question I had on my first Good Friday as a believer- yes Good Friday is worthy of remembering and celebrating. I know now it isn't celebrating defeat, torture or death. I know that because God the Father raised Jesus from the Dead shortly after the first Good Friday and also like the story of my life, there are parts that are painful, brutal...just flat out crappy but they offer a contrast that illuminates that much more the greatness of who God is, and how much he really loves you and I.
Peace to you on this Good Friday,
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