Good Friday?
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 03-04-2010
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I have researched the term Good Friday and understand that we Christians celebrate this day, but I am not sure I understand why. It’s not Biblical…Christ was cruified on Wednesday and arose on Saturday. Christ’s body was still entombed on Friday….So, I don’t know, but we do celebrate Good Friday and that’s ok…..It alerts me to Easter Sunday approaching and that’s what I really like to celebrate. Two ladies came to my door awhile back and I was napping in my easy chair. The doorbell woke me, so I was not very alert. These ladies invited me over to their church on March 31 to celebrate Christ death….I nodded by head and mumbled something to get rid of them, sat back down in my chair and immediately thought, NO, NO..we do not celebrate His death, we celebrate His Resurrection…. Of course, He had to die to be resurrected, I’m glad He died for me and dying was terrible, and had it stopped there…..But it did not, He Arose and He lives forever and He has invited me to the mansion He has prepared for me….And that’s Easter Sunday….But Good Friday….It kind of puts me in a frame of mind of cost paid for my sins, the blood He shed, the cost to make me worthy and acceptable to Him….But that’s just me…How about you?
Christians celebrate Good Friday, not because it was the actual day of Christ’s death and entombment, but because of tradition. It is the day that the Church set for those events a long time ago, so Christ could arise on Easter Sunday (after three days and nights in the tomb). Three days was ancient Hebrew tradition as well. We don’t know the actual day of the crucifixion or of the resurrection. The calender wasn’t invented then. Only God, the Father, knows the actual day. Presumably, I suppose He told the Son also.
The Church established our first calender, based on the phases of the moon, a long time ago. It was also a long time after the events of Easter that the Church saw the need for a calender. Remember! The common idea of the age then was a flat earth (like a pancake); but the Church was aware of the regularity of the phases of the moon. So, the Church chose to use the moon’s phases on which to base our first calender.
Can you imagine what it must have been like to live during the time of the Crucifixion? There was no January, February, March…November, or December. There was no Christmas, no Fourth of July. There was even no April 15 (income tax time) although I imagine the Roman centurions did regularly come knocking on people’s doors to get their share of the booty at the point of the sword. People had only the natural changing of the seasons, the changing of the temps, and their own natural aging to tell them of the passage of time. People couldn’t read the sports pages in their local newspaper on Sunday morning before turning out to watch the local crucifixion. (I’ve been told that the Romans held many, many of them.) One’s world only transcended from horizon to horizon. Even with our screwed up politics and health care system, we are lucky to live in the 21st century when we can go to a nice, comfortable, air conditioned church to experience Jesus’ death, suffering, and resurrection without all the sweat, blood, and gore and without the mean ole Centurions poking a spear up our rear to get us out of the way.
Pete, Good Friday is very biblical. I did not mean to imply that it wasn’t. Just because there was no official known calender in the First Century, does nt mean that it wasn’t biblical. Jesus did die as we all will someday. Jesus did arise as all who follow Him as their Lord and Saviour will also do so someday. It doesn’t really matter if the historical event occurred on a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. These days did not exist then as actually defined days. We only know that Jesus death occurred three days before His resurrection. The Church, in the infinite goodness of its heart, defined all of this for us as a nail on which to hang our hats. Yes! the Easter events were all very biblical, as they were very historical, and very real.
ok, so you are saying what I said, that it was a Wednesday not a Friday…That’s all I said….All that you mention is true and is really important to me, but that said, Friday is not Bibical….
I’m sorry to disagree with you! Good Friday is biblical. Just because you cannot find the particular words in any version of the Bible, nor the Greek, doesn’t mean it is not biblical. The Bible consist much more than the actual words that are between the covers of the Holy Bible. We have to factor in and consider the historical background from which it came down to us as well as the sociological and curtural circumstances that produced it.
I am not saying it was a Wednesday nor a Friday. The Church has established the actual day more than 1000 years after the event actually occurred. Since there was no calender when it occurred and since there was no means of defining time, we do not know the actual day of the week, other than that the resurrection occurred three days after the crucifixion and burial. Remember! A day, in the understanding of first century peoples, was not a 24-hour day (the time it takes for the earth to make one revolution on its axis as we know it); but a day, in their understanding, was the time from sunrise to sunset. Merely factoring in the historical facts of life doesn’t make the event is non-biblical. It only comes from a correct, not a literal, interpretation of Holy Scripture. A person cannot read his daily newspaper without some understanding of that which is going on around him. Neither can a person understand Holy Scripture without some understanding of the historical times from which it came.
If Good Friday was Bibical I could find the chapter and verse to verify it. I believe it happened same as you and I celebrate a day for it happening, but Good Friday cannot be found in the scripture. So, we can argue from now on and I can see your point, but you have blinders on as to what I am saying. And you don’t have to be sorry to disagree with me as I can tell you now we disagree on many things, not just this, but we also can agree on many things….Disagree if you will it is your privilege