Good Friday: It's also been called Great Friday and Sorrowful Friday. The anniversary of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, who suffered and die on the cross for our sins so that we may someday enter the Kingdom of God. There, simple as that. It's just a name for the most important time in human history. If you want to focus on the morbid details of how Jesus suffered for us today, do it some other day, not today. Believing, sipping the wine (the blood of Christ), and eating the wafer (the body of Christ), is for the purpose of becoming more spiritually connected to God and his beloved son, not to make the Crucifixion more pleasant or cosmetic. You're missing the point, sir, of the significance this Good Friday. You sound misguided and disrespectful. If you want to do something more constructive, argue on how we should once again call "spring break"--"Easter vacation".

I think that I understand why it is "Good" Friday, although I do not completely understand the last commentor's complaint.

I think that for Christians it is entirely appropriate on Good Friday to contemplate the horrible details of Yeshua's death, and I thank you for this opportunity to do so, Bob. It is "Good" Friday because this ultimate sacrifice, in all of its ultimate-ness, including its horribleness, was the price paid for the salvation of all of us who want it. The awfulness of the sacrifice is very worth Christian contemplation, on Good Friday and every other day, because it reminds us of how high the price of our salvation. Only an unconditional love would pay such a price to redeem beings so little deserving of it as we are.

Paradoxically, understanding the badness of the first Good Friday is essential to understanding why it was the best Friday, ever: the day of the defeat that would be "swallowed up in victory". It is Good Friday because of the goodness of He who died so horribly that day, and it is good because Yeshua's death, in all its horror, was willingly offered for the sake of overcoming the horrors of our deaths. Although blameless, God, and his Son, together offered this proof of unconditional love for us by suffering as much as even the worst of us could deservedly suffer. In the annals of goodness in this world, no greater gift, or example, is available. Thus it is appropriately Good Friday, despite its horrors (which, for all their gruesomeness, were everyday horrors in the Roman Empire, where crucifixion was the common fate of common criminals).

Mr. Tramel:
I like your summary on Good Friday. Well said sir.
Mr. Hooper's article though, had a tone of sarcasm, belittling, and disrespect to it. For instance, referring to Jesus Christ as "the man Yeshua", and the "Galilean carpenter" who rose from the dead. The entire article focuses solely on the human side of Jesus, which in reality is a small part of the Messiah. We as Christians believe that Jesus Christ is God in human form, who came to the human race in flesh and blood for the sole purpose of suffering and dieing on the cross for our sins. Jesus, from the moment he was placed on Earth knew what was in store for him right down to the last hour. And Peter, his closes Apostle and the first Pope, was powerless to save him from crucifixion as he denied Jesus 3 times before the cock crowed twice just as Christ predicted. The fact that Christ rose from the dead and ascended to Heaven proves what we all have to look forward to at he end of human kind--life everlasting, body and sole, in the Kingdom of Heaven if we love each other and believe in him.
Then there is the above author's remarks "sip the wine (or the grape juice) eat the wafer", "the paid holy man", and "today maybe we could think about the ugly instead of the miracle". Distasteful and misguided.
Christians typically go to Church on Good Friday to pray at the Stations of the Cross. To reflect on things like how long the nails were and how heavy cross was, squirming ribbons of flesh, profuse bleeding, burrowing insects, where precisely the spear hit, and so on, is morbid and unnecessary.
I don't know the above author, but with the over all tone of his article, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that he is a non-believer who is trying to stir a little controversy.

Dear r-winger,

Bob Hooper's comments are not "distasteful" nor "misguided" simply because his faith is not the same as yours. He has the right to believe or view Jesus or Yeshua or anybody anyway he chooses. This does not make him misguided. It just makes him different from you, that's all. If Bob finds it necessary to review the violence of Jesus' murder, it may be morbid to you but it is not unnecessary to Bob. Only Bob knows whether or not Bob is a "non believer" and it does not matter to his fellow bloggers or commenters which he is.

Bob makes a good point here about how those that speak truth to power are often silenced by the so-called patriotic corps.

Mr. Jacobs:
Do you honestly believe that any Catholic or Christian would read that 2nd stanza in the above article and not be at least a little bit offended? Come on, it's sarcastic, belittling, and demeaning of what takes place in church. I think the above author knows and I think deep down you know it.
Happy Easter!
I'm going to church today to share in the body and blood of Christ, not the grape juice or the wafer.

Perhaps I am entitled to a word or two.

First of all, yes, the intentional focus of my essay was the man Yeshua, and the all-too-common human evil that exists today.

Yeshua (Jesus if you prefer the transliteration)is commonly conceptualized as "fully man and fully divine." Unfortunately (in my opinion) the "man" Yeshua is too ofen lost in the story, and the whole affair perfumed.

An essay for Good Friday seemed to me an appropriate time to address the human suffering involved in a crucifixion, and to examine the process that led to it in Yeshua's case. Today, every preacher or priest will have covered the miraculous side abundantly. And, yes, I believe doing so misses something very important for the times: human responsibility to act in God's name for social justice. I find the right-wing of literalist "Christianity" sadly serving ego rather than Christ. (Larry James and Gerald Britt's posts following mine are relevant to the point.)

A further point of emphasis was to suggest that, while "the Jews" frequently are blamed for the betrayal of the man Yeshua, the Roman overlords were in control, and their influence on the Sanhedrin is frequently overlooked.

The Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, in which the bread and wine (or juice in many Protestant sects)is literally transformed into the actual flesh and blood of Christ is interpreted differently (and conscientiously)by many non-Roman Catholic traditions. R-winger seems to be particularly offended by my failure to honor Roman Catholic interpretive doctrine. That is his right.

Others read the same Scriptures and understand that Jesus is not talking literally but figuratively. Certainly the Scripture does not specify that those at the Last Supper understood Yeshua to be speaking literally, nor is there any reason to think he opened a vein and issued blood into the cup or severed his own tissue. Those who are orthodox Roman Catholics and wish to interpret it differently are, again, entitled to be as judgmental as they wish. I chose to understand the sacraments as symbolic.

I accept that "r-winger" may consider me "misguided-disrespectful-sarcastic-belittling-etc." Perhaps I am also to be faulted for smiling at his phrase "any good Catholic OR Christian." Perhaps he will be so good as to expound on the difference(s).

I took communion this morning at the Episcopal church of my youth. God will know whether I did it right. R-winger does not.