Good Friday thoughts

My sister and I always used to wonder what you were supposed to say to people on this day. "Happy Good Friday" just doesn't seem suitable, somehow.

David Rensberger has some significant thoughts to offer on the subject:

"Good Friday is the one Christian “holiday” that the wider culture, even in America, has not taken up. It is the one holy day whose Christian significance cannot be bleached out to leave a commercially viable residue. Christmas can be for children and families, for shopping, for feasting. Easter can be bunnies and baby chicks, the newness of spring and a whole lot of chocolate. Even a couple of days marked out to honor saints in some Christian traditions—Valentine, Patrick—have been pretty much entirely taken over by a culture of romance and hedonism, sex and shopping.

"Not this day. There is nothing marketable about Good Friday. Suffering, sacrifice, injustice, betrayal—what’s to celebrate? What’s to shop for? Who could pig out on a day like that?

"The absolute impossibility of adapting Good Friday to consumer culture is most evident in the fact that even the greeting card industry, which seems capable of churning out more or less appropriate little notes for every conceivable religious event and life occasion, has nothing for today. Can you imagine it?
Because he bled and died,
    We’re all choked up inside.
It’s not a lovely day,
   But I still hope you’re okay.


   Wishing you and yours a joyless, grave,
   and yet oddly hopeful Good Friday."

"There is simply no way for a culture devoted to lightweight enjoyment and superficial relationships to come to terms with Good Friday. It is, in a sense, the last bulwark of genuine Christian spirituality against the sea of pop religion that has overwhelmed the American churches."