Good heavens, it's Good Friday!

I have been a bad diet Catholic this year and haven't "celebrated" (for lack of a better term) Lent or Holy Week enough. I've been so preoccupied with life and my own dealings that I've seemed to forgotten that the really important things in life are not Frogger tournaments or text messaging but that there is only one truly important thing in life and that's Jesus. Its strange to think that today is the day that Christians remember Christ's huge sacrifice on the cross. We remember his blood shed, the nails through his hands, his agony. We try to understand this deep pain that our God must have suffered, and yet, we cannot. We cannot even begin to FATHOM how much pain our Lord went through. And I think perhaps that's why we cannot seem to walk away from Frogger tournaments and text messaging, from bowls of ice cream and laughing with friends, from school books and cell phones. We don't realize the depth of the sacrifice Christ gave for us. We don't realize the pain He went through, and we certainly don't realize the reason WHY.

Good Friday tends to be a more gloomy day, and many joke that it should instead be called "Bad Friday." But really, it is one of the most important days we 'celebrate'. Good Friday is soooooo good. It cleanses. Good Friday was the day that our souls were paid for, and Good Friday is the reason we're able to stand in the face of God, trembling, heads down, hands to cover our face, singing Holy, Holy, Holy. That's what Good Friday does. It pays for our sins.

But Good Friday isn't good except for Easter. What power does death on a cross have? Hundreds of other people were crucified as Jesus was. What is the difference? Why do we celebrate one man's crucifixion? The simply answer: The ressurection. The power of the cross wasn't complete until the revelation of the ressurection. The ressurection points us to our God--it shows us that our God not only cares enough about us to make himself incarnate in his Son and die a terrible death for us, but that he'll show us that the death was not in vain by ressurecting the very body we threw to the woods and nails.

I think Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday are great examples of our everyday lives as Christians. We are forced to live our own crucifixions sometimes. Sometimes, life hurts and we have to learn to get through it. And often times, it's God's will that life hurts. Or, it's God's will that something be done, and that makes us hurt. But the truth is that there is always an Easter Sunday waiting around the corner. Just because we can't understand the magnitude of our Good Friday.... Just because it feels like it's JUST crucifixion with no happy skies attached doesn't mean that's true. It means that we have to suck it up, wade through Holy Saturday with much praying and struggling, and be ecstatic when our Easter Sunday rolls around, and the clouds open up, and the Lord descends, and we're able to look back on our Good Friday and say, "that's what that was for."

And I hope we're all able to do that. Everyone wishes for a life of happiness. I don't. I wish for myself, and for all of my friends, a life full of Good Fridays, Holy Saturdays, and magnificent Easter Sundays. Because what are Easter Sundays without Good Fridays, and what are Good Fridays without Easter Sundays? And Holy Saturdays? Well, they just make you stronger.