What's So Good About Friday?

This is Friday and it's been one of those weeks today. Just about anything that could go wrong, as Murphy says, did.

I nearly overslept this morning and that's never a good way to start a day. I got to work and my inventory count was messed up, so I had to recount but to no avail. I think it's the database that's giving me fits. Next, my weekly order of merchandise arrived today but was short about 90% of what I had ordered. I had to wait until 7:30 to call the company in Omaha and, you guessed it, they lost my order. After some pleading and begging they filled the most critical items and a salesman delivered it late this afternoon.

The rest of my daily paperwork went without a glitch until I went to the bank. I had called in a change order which included $140 in $5 bills. I never looked in the bag until I got back to my office and when I did I discovered they had given me $140 in $1 dollar bills.........so back to the bank we go.

By this time I am grumbling and using the number system since we clergy are not supposed to swear. I was up to about a 7 on the list and I said to myself, "What in the #6 is so good about Friday?" This is a horrible day. Nothing has went right. At one point I was so upset I felt myself begin to hyperventilate. "I see absolutely nothing good about this Friday!!!" Then it hit me. Good Friday is not good because everything went right that day, but because it didn't. Jesus, God incarnate, may not have seen the good in that day either. He was kicked, spit upon, beaten to a point where most people would have died. He was made to carry his own cross up a hill. They drove large spikes through his wrists. The pain was horrible and he would have agreed that this was not a good day.

But, you see, the worst that human kind....you and I, could do to God was turned into the best God could do for us. I didn't even blink when I drove a nail into his wrist, how about you? God didn't blink either when, from the cross, he said, "Father, forgive them...." Forgive someone who would do such a horrible thing to one of my children? Not in a million years! But that's exactly what God did. Had Jesus came to condemn the world we wouldn't be here today. But this was the good of Good Friday, that God sent Jesus to save the world. When I die I am going on to perfection where I will be made perfect in love. There will be no more pain, no more suffering, no more tears......only joy, eternal joy. I am not going to get there by my own efforts, because they are meager at best. But I will get there, as will you, because of God's efforts and because of what happened on the Friday we call Good. God showed his grace, this forgiveness, this love and his salvation from the cross that day and by that grace we are saved.

Come to think of it, this hasn't been such a bad day all things considered. I have a wife I love more than all the world. I have children and grandchildren that are my joy. I have a God who knows me and still loves me. I have a brother who suffered and died on a miserable day to make it a Good Friday.

Lord, forgive me when I grumble about small things that simply don't matter in eternity. Forgive me Lord when I look down upon a brother or sister. Forgive me when I utter a harsh word to people I love. Forgive me Lord for the thoughts that I think. I praise you Lord, because I know you have forgiven me. Now let the world know of your forgiveness and let me be a messenger of your salvation. Amen.

Happy Easter