Good, Bad, and Better Friday

Good:

Today, I'm guest blogging at Rose McCauley's Blog: Rose McCauley, Christian Author with 5 tips for more believable characters. I hope you'll visit her blog today, and in the future.

Bad:

I know why it's called Good Friday, but it's never seemed appropriate to me. It's not fair that since we, those in the future, know the outcome- that we get to declare it good. When it happened, it was the most awful thing that had ever happened. A pain so tremendous that God, who knows all good and is love, had to look away. And I think, if we don't rush it. That there is so much to be learned in that dark moment, at the time when hope disappeared. The promise was there, but the promise was in words. And at that time, no one understood what John the Apostle would- "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)-- the word was everything. But in that gap between the crucifixion and the resurrection, things were bleak.

So on this Friday, I choose to sit in the mystery of Christ's death. How one who was both fully human and fully God, could die that kind of a death. How God has never turned away from me, but did from Jesus. How the promise wasn't yet fulfilled. I choose to remember the grief  my ancient ancestors in Christ experienced- the ones who ate with Christ, joked with him, and rolled their eyes at him a time or two. The ones who loved him like I love those closest to me.

Better:
This song started running through my head on Wednesday, and my appreciation and writer's admiration go to Isaac Watts for putting to paper the very things my spirit feels when I survey the wondrous cross.

When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,

Sorrow and love flow mingled down!

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

--Isaac Watts, 1707

I couldn't have said it better myself.
God loved, and loves, us so much.