What Is Good About This Good Friday?

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Today is so special a Friday that it was christened the good Friday by the Catholic Church and accepted as so by all Christendom. But what really is good about a Friday in which our Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed, spat on, tortured, killed and hung on the cross of Calvary by smelly sinners and low lives who would not qualify to speak to Him, if his time wasn’t up? What is good about a dirty gloomy Friday characterized by slander, blackmail and betrayals?

Growing up, I didn’t know about any Good Friday. My grandma would prepare me for the Memorial of Christ death, which is the way Jehovah’s Witnesses prefer to celebrate their own Easter. Sometimes, this memorial date fell on a Good Friday, a Holy Thursday or any other day, the Watchtower and Tract Society of New York calculated as the corresponding date to Nissan 14, 30 AD.

These dates were the best days of my childhood, as we were sure to stay out late at night, come back to a full pot of specially prepared rice and good drinks. My grandparents made it a point of duty to invite friends over for the ceremony. Clearly, this is the most important ceremony in the life of every Jehovah’s Witness. Witnesses had their own way of keeping tab on the Holy Week – they read Bible verses that told the stories of Christ’s sufferings and death in their daily devotional, which they peculiarly called; examining the Scriptures Daily.

I placed less importance on the Holy week till about ten years ago when I converted to Catholicism and began to take special note of their rituals, ceremonies and doctrines. With all my reservations for organized religion, the Catholic Church remains the closest to Christ’ idea of true religion. The tag of good to this Friday could not have been better.

It is the day that this Friday commemorates that made human salvation and redemption, clear realities. Had Christ not died, we would have still been in bondage in Adam’s sins. Had there not been this Friday, there wouldn’t have been anything like Christianity and the hopes we today harbor as Christians would not have been here.

It is the day that this day commemorates that brought salvation to mankind, hence, there could not have been a better day than this Friday in the life of any true Christian or non-religionist true believer in Christ, like myself.

Happy Good Friday, everyone.

by ONWUASOANYA, FCC JONES