From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lemasabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) – Matt 27:45-46

I never quite understood why it is called Good Friday.

It seems there are much better words to describe what occurred. Words like brutal seem to fit better. Hateful. Disgusting. Bad.

Calling the crucifixion of Jesus “good” seems to me like a way to paint it more comfortably. It makes what happened easier for us to process. It is easier to put “Good Friday” in songs and in sermons. It seems to fit better with the bunny’s and pretty colors that Hallmark has made Easter about.

But there was nothing pretty about Good Friday for Jesus.

As people who claim to follow Jesus, it can be hard to come to the place where we actually process what happened. But today, of all days of the year, should be a day where we try.

After they had pulled the beard from is face. After they had whipped his back to a bloody pulp. And after they heaped insult after insult upon the only one who never did a single thing to deserve them, Jesus cried out “my God, my God why have you forsaken me!”

See, the greatest pain that Jesus endured on the cross had nothing to do with whips and insults, as awful as all of that was. The most awful aspect of the cross for Jesus was the fact he had to face absolute separation from his father. His own father had to turn his face away in shame.

And it is because Jesus subjected himself to that pain and that loneliness in those brutal moments that you and I can rest assured in every moment that we never have to be separated from our Heavenly father, our God, for one single moment of our life.

We never have to be alone. We never have to be condemned. No matter what trials we face or sin we might have committed.

That is good news. But getting to that place of freedom requires we die, too. It requires we go to the cross where Jesus hung and bled, and we have to put ourselves to death there too. Our selfish ambitions. Our false humility. Our whole self. As Paul said in Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Only when we can go to that place will we fully realize the goodness of what happened to Jesus today.