What's So Good...

....about Good Friday? Especially considering it started with a brutal flogging and ended in the crucifixion death of a man who had spent his public life giving sight to the blind, taking pity on the poor, and raising the dead. So if those events transpired, and I now believe they did, why do we call the day of His death Good Friday? What *is* so good about it? The fact that He was finally dead? What had he done? He'd never sinned against anyone, never hurt a living soul, never lied, never cheated, never committed a single crime. So.. what did they kill Him for? The answer my friend lies buried in a book that most of us never study in any depth. A book we disparage without ever having opened it's cover. And I was no different.

I was born and raised a churched Roman Catholic. I blew out of the Church in 1999; I was 44 years old and furious. Truth be told, for all the rosaries, novenas, masses, and parochial academia I'd attended, I was never much of a believer to begin with. As many times as I'd heard it said that *Jesus died for my sins* I'd no clue who that man was or what He had done for me. I didn't believe He had actually existed really, but was rather a fable. A nice moral tale to keep those of us in the pews in controlled line. I didn't know if there was a heaven or hell, but sure hoped that in the event there was either, my good deeds might outweigh my bad, so that I would ultimately end up strumming a harp on a cloud somewhere. Oh joy, oh rapture, oh brother.

Then something happened to me in 1999. Perhaps it was the immanent coming of Y2K. The end of an age. The end of the world? Perhaps it was just my time to be quickened. In any event, I blew out of the Church and within 6 months began to roil about in guilt. *What if there is a God.. what if there is a hell.. what if I didn't make 'purgatory'.. what if I roasted in eternal flames forever.. what if.. what if*.. it tortured me. I couldn't go back to religion, with it's rules and hypocrisy, that made no sense. But I could find nowhere forward to go. That's when I looked at all of my choices (other philosophies/religions, atheism/satanism). I chose from among them (well I'd never actually considered satanism as a choice but hey.. it's out there.. with a surprising message I'd never known about) to start studying scripture and found out something I had missed all those years I had sat around with my moral Catholic i's dotted and t's crossed. It wasn't about *being good enough to make it into the angels in the clouds club*. If heaven truly is a place of perfection where there are no tears, I came to see that even if it was my daily transgressions would inevitably nix that possibility anyway. I wreak havoc; I cause tears, even when I don't mean to. So then, this was about something far more pertinent than *right and wrong/good and bad* to Him.. no.. He wanted more than compliance from me. He wanted all of me. He wanted my heart.

The first time I read Ephesians 2:8-10 I reacted like everyone I've ever shared it with. Salvation is a matter of faith and not works. WHAT? If I just *believe* I get to go to heaven, well what if I *believe* and steal a car, do I get to go there then?? What if I commit a murder, do I still get to go there then? And what about all the *good people* that didn't *believe* (my own present company I included), how could they not go to heaven? What about the pygmies in the deepest forest of Africa. WHAT.. ABOUT.. THE HINDUS!?!?!

What I didn't realize at the time was that I was looking at this through human eyes. Not God's eyes. I was equating human goodness with godly holiness, I didn't know He doesn't. I was falling flat when it came to object constancy, I didn't know He wasn't. Humans let go when others hurt them deeply enough. God waits in the wings no matter what. So all the while I was looking at Him through the child-like concept of religious checks and balances, He was looking at me through the eyes of a father. My father. I expected earned reward and due punishment for all of my behavior, and all the while He was loving me. Me. No matter what. This before I gave Him the time of day. What had I done to deserve that? Truthfully nothing. He just loved me for no other reason than simply because I was the me He had created. So how did I get to be with Him? I didn't. He leaned down and made His way to me. Which brings us back to Good Friday.

As Roman soldiers drove spikes through Christ's wrists to fasten Him to the cross, He pleaded with His father: Luke 23:33 When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Wait. He is praying for the enemy? The guys who wielded the hammers that pounded the nails through His flesh into the hard, dry wood of a cross? What kind of grace is this? What kind of love? And why were they nailing Him to a cross anyway? What was the significance of His actions that entire passover night?

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