Yes, it's a good friday.

I recently visited Maggi Dawn's blog where she was discussing the age old question of 'good' friday,

"Why is it called Good Friday?" asked my son. "It's not good at all,
it's really bad."

The shops are full of eggs and chickens and sunshine and cheer. But
Good Friday and Holy Saturday are the most sombre days in the whole
Church calendar, recalling the death and disappearance of God. Not
much there to celebrate or feel happy about.

For those who enjoy a degree of certainty in their faith, maybe Good
Friday and Holy Saturday don't really "bite" - they are more about
anticipation than devastation. But those of us who live with a
fragmented faith, a faith that has had too many holes punctured in it,
too much damage ever to recover a naive certainty, there is something
reassuring about the rise and fall of the Church seasons. It's a relief
to be honest, to acknowledge the disappearance of God and the uncertainty of the outcome.

I recently talked myself into an empty hole trying to explain why we call it "Good Friday" in one sentence, in a year 8 RS lesson. In fact so much of what we believe started to sound bonkers when reduced down to facts/simple descriptions and as guilty as I may have felt for not having nice, off-pat answers for these things, feeling I was down an empty hole seemed appropriate, after all the empty hole is what easter is all about.

And I love it, the church annually acknowledging the desperation of faith. I love to think of the sheer terror, disbelief, confusion, embarrassment, the disciples must have felt, for we feel these things all the time but rarely admit to them. The darkness of Good Friday allows a place to see the darkness in us, allows a sacred space for our wonderings to 'just be', to me it's a freeze-frame in our faith journey.

Coming at the end of Spring it is a reminder of all those dark days we have just endured. Days which make the longed for spring brighter and more full of hope but days which need to be endured for both nature and us to be complete.

Maybe it's a British thing but I think we're not very good at the negative side of the emotional spectrum, not that these things are to be wallowed in but if there is a 'time for every season under heaven', then to deny these feelings seems wrong to me. Therefore, Good Friday is precious because, in the same way that Job gives us permission to be angry at God, Good Friday allows us to ask if we too are forsaken, all the while knowing we are the ones who turn from the cross.