What Is Good Friday?

Good Friday is the Christian observance of the day Jesus Christ was crucified and died on the cross. It falls on the Friday before Easter Sunday and is part of the Holy Week that begins with Palm Sunday and ends with Resurrection Sunday. The name 'Good Friday' may seem paradoxical — how can the day of Christ's brutal death be called good? The answer lies in what His death accomplished. Through His sacrificial death, Jesus paid the penalty for human sin, satisfied divine justice, and opened the way of salvation. What was evil in man's act of crucifying the Son of God was turned by God into the ultimate good for humanity. The events of Good Friday are recorded in all four Gospels. After His arrest in Gethsemane, Jesus was tried before the Jewish Sanhedrin, then before Pontius Pilate the Roman governor. Though Pilate found no fault in Him, he yielded to the crowd's demand and ordered crucifixion. Jesus was scourged, mocked with a crown of thorns, and forced to carry His cross to Golgotha. There He was nailed to the cross between two thieves. From the sixth hour (noon) until the ninth hour (3 PM), darkness covered the land. Jesus cried out, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' — bearing the divine wrath against sin that we deserved. Then He said, 'It is finished,' and 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,' and died. The veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom, symbolizing that the way into God's presence was now open through Christ's sacrifice. Good Friday is a day of solemn reflection on the cost of sin and the greatness of divine love. 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.' It is not a day of celebration but of awe, gratitude, and meditation on the cross. Without Good Friday, there would be no Easter Sunday. The resurrection confirms that the sacrifice was accepted and that death has been defeated.