Why isn't today called Bad Friday?

[bif]

I mean, what's so Good about it?

[Haole Girl]

1. I was a little bored, so I looked it up (google) and found this:

http://www.kencollins.com/question-11.htm


Calling the day of the Crucifixion ‘Good’ Friday is a designation that is peculiar to the English language. In German, for example, it is called Karfreitag. The Kar part is an obsolete word, the ancestor of the English word care in the sense of cares and woes, and it meant mourning. So in German, it is Mourning Friday. And that is what the disciples did on that day—they mourned. They thought all was lost.

I’ve read that the word good used to have a secondary meaning of holy, but I can’t trace that back in my etymological dictionary. There are a number of cases in set phrases where the words God and good got switched around because of their similarity. One case was the phrase God be with you, which today is just good-bye. So perhaps Good Friday was originally God’s Friday. But I think we call it Good Friday because, in pious retrospect, all that tragedy brought about the greatest good there could be.

I can see virtue in either terminology. If we call it Mourning Friday, as in German, we are facing reality head on, taking up the cross if you will, fully conscious that the Christian walk is seldom a walk in the park. But if we call it Good Friday, as in English, we are confessing the Christian hope that no tragedy—not even death—can overwhelm God’s providence, love, and grace. Either way seems fine to me!

[grannylib]

3. That's a pretty nifty explanation - I prefer the "good" to the "mourning"

although I'm not keen on calling Christ's suffering itself a good thing, but the outcome for us humans certainly is.

[Hand]

2. Insh'Allah. nt

[YellowRubberDuckie]

4. It's Good that he died for our sins?

I don't know.
Duckie

[Bake]

6. Yeah, it is good.

It's what He wanted.

Bake

[YellowRubberDuckie]

7. Right...

But is that maybe what the Good Friday thing is about?
And while we're on weird things surrounding Easter, if someone HAD to betray Christ in order for him to get captured, why do people believe that Judas was evil? Why do people believe that he's burning in hell? I realize he killed himself, but he was driven to it because of what he did. Shouldn't there have been some forgiveness there? Merciful Lord my ass!
And where the hell did the idea of a bunny and EGGS come from? I'm full of questions about this crap. Anyone have any answers?
Duckie

[Bake]

8. I have no idea where the bunny comes from, or the eggs.

But as for Judas, it gets into that whole "somebody had to do it" thing, along with "it didn't have to be him, i.e., Judas, that did it."

I like the lines from JCSuperstar, "Why don't you do it." "You want me to do it." "If you knew why I do it." "I don't care why you do it."

Kinda hard to wrap your brain around.

Keep the faith,

Bake

[theredpen]

5. We used to have the day off from work

[SocratesInSpirit]

9. As I explained to my husband...

It's good because when Jesus sacrificed himself to pay for everyone's sins, the "veil in the temple" was torn in two, and humanity was finally allowed into heaven.

So my husband said, "Oh - so it was good for us, but bad for Jesus."

He certainly has a way of getting to the heart of things. :)