Why do they call it Good Friday?

He was taken out of the city. He carried his cross to the place known as "The Skull." In Hebrew it was called "Golgotha." There they crucified him and two others with him. One was on either side, with Jesus between them. (John 19:17-18)

Probably every Christian has wondered "If Jesus DIED on 'Good Friday,' why do they call it GOOD?" What a supreme paradox. We now call the day Jesus was crucified, Good. Many believe this name simply evolved—as language does. They point to the earlier designation, "God's Friday," as its root. (This seems a reasonable conjecture, given that "goodbye" evolved from "God be with you.") Whatever its origin, the current name of this holy day offers a fitting lesson to those of us who assume (as is easy to do) that "good" must mean "happy." We find it hard to imagine a day marked by sadness as a good day.

I certainly don't have any "official" answers, but I have given this some thought, so I can offer my personal ponderings on this... First, Jesus' act of dying on the cross was "The Act" that opened the door between God and man. In fact, was the ONLY act that could! All of Jesus' miracles were great, His obedience to the Father wonderful, His casting out of demons amazing (and probably pretty relieving to the "castee"), and His resurrection glorious, (to say the least!), but it was by Jesus' death on the cross alone ~ His work of atonement ~ that we were enabled to enter into sweet relationship with the Father.

I'd say that's pretty GOOD...

Whether you worship this Loving God or not, tomorrow (Easter) is the day we celebrate everything He did for us on that dark Friday. I encourage you to ponder how much He must love us to have gone through such an excruciating and painful death just so that we could have a restored relationship with Him and spend eternity with Him in Heaven. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

When you know the end of the story, I guess you can say it was very GOOD!