Good Friday

So... am I the only one at work today?

I think I might be.

I was a tad bit bored so I looked up the definition of Good Friday to see what it meant and where it came from. I did so...because I don't mean to be disrespectful, but the death of Christ doesn't seem to be anything but bad... especially after I saw that Passion of the Christ flick last year... it was roses... let me tell you that!

I found this description online at http://www.kencollins.com/. He seems to know some stuff. He is a minister in Virgina... I swear Virginia has all the answers... not us silly jerseyans.

"Calling the day of the Crucifixion ‘Good’ Friday is a designation that is peculiar to the English language. In German, for example, it is called Karfreitag. The Kar part is an obsolete word, the ancestor of the English word care in the sense of cares and woes, and it meant mourning. So in German, it is Mourning Friday. And that is what the disciples did on that day—they mourned. They thought all was lost. I’ve read that the word good used to have a secondary meaning of holy, but I can’t trace that back in my etymological dictionary. There are a number of cases in set phrases where the words God and good got switched around because of their similarity. One case was the phrase God be with you, which today is just good-bye. So perhaps Good Friday was originally God’s Friday. But I think we call it Good Friday because, in pious retrospect, all that tragedy brought about the greatest good there could be. I can see virtue in either terminology. If we call it Mourning Friday, as in German, we are facing reality head on, taking up the cross if you will, fully conscious that the Christian walk is seldom a walk in the park. But if we call it Good Friday, as in English, we are confessing the Christian hope that no tragedy—not even death—can overwhelm God’s providence, love, and grace. Either way seems fine to me!"

With that knowledge in teh bank... I can go back to getting a lot of other stuff done... stuff that I am sure will be rewarded well when I return on Monday.