by Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Back in 2001 Jim Collins wrote a bestselling book on business that researched companies who moved from being “good” companies to “great” ones in their sustained business performance - hence the title Good to Great.

I’ve had that phrase stuck in my mind as we extinguish more and more candles on the Lenten cross to mark our journey toward Easter. It is already Holy Week, the time between Palm Sunday and Easter. At Bethany we will meet in a variety of ways for worship and reflection and we’ll exit from a darkened sanctuary on Thursday night. That will bring us face to face with the apparent contradiction we call “Good Friday.”

It is the day we mark as the darkest day in human history. To underscore this the gospel writers Matthew, Mark and Luke all note that on that Friday in AD 33, as Jesus hung on the cross, “darkness came over all the land…from noon until three in the afternoon.”

Well, of course. The Messiah, the embodiment of God’s passionate love for humankind, was dying. He was put there through the combined efforts of Gentiles, Jews and Christians. At least the blame can be spread evenly around-Roman politicians and executioners, resentful Jewish religious leaders and manipulated crowds, close followers of Jesus who couldn’t stay the course (Peter, Judas). Of course it was dark on that Friday. So how can it possibly be called “good?”

The “good” of Good Friday may well come from a long ago linguistic corruption of “God’s Friday,” which is interesting but doesn’t answer the question. If Friday was the darkest day in history and God’s greatest effort to reach humankind was destroyed, in what way might it be either “good” or “God’s?” Those words imply victory and possession, and Friday seems to have held only defeat and loss.

Good Friday can only be good in retrospect. The cross is only good when we realize that Jesus was no martyr for a cause but the bringer of life. “Good” means we can see the purpose of God fulfilled, that something actually happened on the cross. Jesus accepted death to absorb evil and sin so that people would never be separated from their Maker. And whenever we get a glimpse that we too are involved both in the reason Christ went to the cross and in receiving the forgiveness enacted there, it’s good. So good. Unbelievably good.

But. Matthew’s book, and Mark’s and Luke’s and John’s and Paul’s letters and the whole rest of the New Testament do not stop at good. Friday is good. But Sunday morning, Easter morning…is great. If we stop at Friday, at the end of the day we might have an appreciation for the difficulty Jesus endured. We may even comprehend something of the depth of God’s love. But Jesus dies in the end, we die in the end, our loved ones die in the end. The good of Friday becomes the confusion and loneliness and resignation of Saturday.

But Sunday. Resurrection day. The slow dawn reveals an empty tomb, the full plan of God begins to awaken and stir inside of us. It is overwhelming. It is great. Great! God provides not only love but hope, not only salvation in this life but for all time, not only the way to live but Life.

It is Holy Week. Reflect, pray, ponder the whole story. Friday to Sunday. Good Friday to Easter Sunday. Cross to empty tomb. Good to great.