While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
Good Friday.
It’s a beautiful day. Like many other beautiful days, it is also hard. The grief is heavy. Because today is a culmination; the day Christ dies. We can’t skip over this part. We cannot accelerate to the part of the song where we all stand in unison and sing “up from the grave he arose”.
Today is a Holy Day. It is so important to our tradition, to our faith. We cannot separate our salvation from this day. Our forgiveness is deeply tied to suffering.
“This is obvious when we implore forgiveness for our sins or support in our tribulations,” he says. “But in the long run it is perhaps even more apparent in our growing—for it ought to be growing—awareness that our whole being by its very nature is one vast need; incomplete, preparatory, empty yet cluttered, crying out for Him who can untie things that are now knotted together and tie up things that are still dangling loose.”
CS Lewis