Good? Friday...

I get the 'reasoning' behind calling it "Good Friday". I know it was 'good' that Christ was betrayed, suffered, died, etc. in order to fulfill His purpose and bring about the new covenant with God. However, I think the moniker allows us to ignore the real horrors the man went through. I think in many ways, as we celebrate the spiritual Christ we forget the true suffering of the man Jesus. There was nothing good about it.

I caught a few minutes of "Passion of the Christ" (you know that Mel Gibson opus) a few days ago and taking out some of the...um...poetic license of the piece what I really appreciated was that he did not hold back on the horror the man Jesus went through. I think so many other films try to depict it, but are still a little sensitive to audiences, and while Gibson may have gone a little over the top (I mean the image of the cat-o-nine tails getting stuck in Jesus' side and ripping the flesh off is now burned on my retinas) the point is that he drove the point home.

We talk about Christ's suffering, on an intellectual level we understand the horror he went through, much like when we here of torture in other circumstances because there is no mistaking that was what was done. He was being tortured as a political prisoner. To Pilate, the Roman soldiers, and the small group of Jewish leaders who spearheaded his arrest and execution, Jesus was a threat to the status quo. Therefore once Jesus was marked for death as a political prisoner, he had to be punished as such. If there something the Romans (and the Inquisitors of the Spanish Inquisition) knew how to do it was torture people. And crucifixion was used often among Roman provinces to discourage those who would perpetrate crimes against Rome.

So while you sit on this Holy day and thank God and Christ for what transpired so we might all find salvation; take moment and think on what Jesus went through as the man. Really try and understand the physical pain and suffering he willingly submitted to in order to die for what he believed. The whips ripping his flesh, the thorns digging in, the nails bursting through bone and muscle. Then hanging on his own body weight, literally dying slowly through the suffocation his own body was causing by the pressure exerted on his lungs, heart, limbs. Think of anytime you've truly hurt yourself physically (deep cut, broken limbs, etc) and magnify that by hundreds.

In some twisted way, Jesus' suffering and his willingness to go through it all (like all people who have truly been tortured and killed for their beliefs), is the greatest unification legacy he left. If there is one thing all humanity can come together and understand as a collective whole it is suffering and pain. We seem to unite best, when looking at the worst. So to do all Christians, no matter the demonination come to agreement on the suffering of Jesus. It is one of our unifications in a religion that is so splintered.

Maybe "Good Friday" is the correct moniker after all.