Tag: Love

Why Do We Call It Good Friday?

Why call it Good Friday when it is a day of grief, of sorrow, of suffering, a day of affliction and transgressions, a day of iniquities and wounds?

Ultimately: Today is God’s Friday. And on His Friday, God turned a Bad Day into a Good day.

But why?

Why is today called Good Friday?

Many years ago my then six year old son said, “Shouldn’t it be called Sad Friday?”

His twin brother suggested that it be called Bad Friday, since Jesus was killed on a cross.

Indeed it was a bad day for God.

His One and Only Son was unjustly condemned, slandered, betrayed, abandoned, tortured, mocked and murdered.

It was a sad day for God; it was a sad Friday for Jesus.

Why call it Good Friday when it is a day of grief, of sorrow, of suffering, a day of affliction and transgressions, a day of iniquities and wounds?

Why call it Good Friday when God’s Son is humbled and crucified for preaching the Good News of God’s Kingdom?

If anything, it should be called God’s Friday.

On it God’s Son was killed by God’s people; they had killed another of God’s Prophets as they had done in centuries past, another of God’s Servants rejected.

On this Day it was God’s Kingdom that was resisted, God’s good News of Deliverance and Salvation of Peace and Righteousness rejected.

God the Father sent His Son to be the New King of Israel; to fulfill that ancient promise to Abraham: “I will bless you, I will make you a blessing, through you I will bless the world.”

Instead, the children of Abraham, Isaac and Israel killed their promised king.

It was a bad Friday for God the Father! Why call it Good Friday when it’s a day marked by violence, rebellion, and defiance? If nothing else, call it God’s Friday, just not Good Friday.

The earliest Christians called today Holy Friday.

Holy carries with it the meaning of set apart, unlike all else; for obvious reasons, today is holy, unlike all other Fridays in all of history.

Today also became known as Great Friday.

Third Station of the Cross, Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem

A tradition developed in early Christianity when every Friday became a Holy Feast Day in remembrance of Christ’s crucifixion.

This day today became known as Great Friday, a distinction from all the other Holy Feast Days.

Holy Friday. Great Friday. Those are some apt and ancient names for today.

Maybe we should reclaim those early titles for today – instead of calling it Good Friday, call it Holy Friday, or Great Friday. But Good Friday?

Here’s how St. Paul describes the significance of that great and holy day:

Who, being in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he made himself nothing,
By taking the form of a servant
Being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human being,
He humbled himself
By becoming obedient to death
Even death on a cross.

Letter to the Church of Philippi

You could say that God’s heart was hammered onto a hardwood tree that day; a day of humiliation and rejection, a morning of deathly brokenness, of shattered bleeding love.

Ninth Station of the Cross, Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem

God suffered on this Friday. God in the flesh was staked to a rough-hewn pole amidst criminals.

On this Friday God the Son who came to serve and save was ripped to shreds. His life and blood pouring out onto the stones on this Friday.

God gave a vision of this many centuries earlier to a prophet who was also rejected and tortured and destroyed in a tree (according to legend). [It is told that on his final day, Isaiah was stuffed into a hollow tree and then sawn in half.]

Isaiah was a servant that suffered. He was the servant of a God who suffered. He was given words to remember about another servant to come who would suffer:

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering. 
Yet we considered him punished by God, 
stricken by him and afflicted.
He was oppressed and afflicted, 
yet he did not open his mouth.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, 
and as a sheep before its shearers are silent, 
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away, 
yet who of his generation protested?
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, 
and with the rich in his death.
Though he had done no violence, 
nor was any deceit found in his mouth.

This makes for a Sad Friday. As my son Levi said, “It should be called Bad Friday.” Or at least, instead of Good Friday, God’s Friday.

In German, the day is known as Gottes Freitag. For a nation that predates ours, they carry the tradition of calling today God’s Friday.

But it also seems that some in Germany long ago referred to today as Gute Freitag.

Gute carries with it the meaning of Benevolence, Charity, Kindness, Goodness. 

And so it seems the tradition of suggests calling today Goodness Friday or Sacrificial Kindness Friday.

Ultimately: Today is God’s Friday. And on His Friday, God turned a Bad Day into a Good day.

As we read the sorrowful story in the Gospel According to Luke, amidst the words of grief and paragraphs of pain, there is a simple, stunning line from God’s Son that transforms God’s Friday into a Good Friday:

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with them to be executed. When they came to the place of The Skull, they were crucified him there, along with the criminals – one on his right, the other on his left. And Jesus whispered amidst his tears groans: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

He’s not supposed to be there, between two brigands. 

Jesus was a good man. He brought good news. He was good news. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, befriended the poor, lifted up the lame, set sinners free, generously gave away faith, hope, and love. 

It can’t be a good day when God’s good Son is unjustly put to death. But even amidst the torture and agony and pain, God’s Good Son lets his body:

Be pierced for our transgressions,
Be crushed for our iniquities.
He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. 

This is the Father’s Friday. For those that believe, trust, accept, want it, today can be a God’s Goodness Friday.

How would someone know that you believed that today is a Good Friday? 

How would someone know that you trusted in the Father’s Forgiveness? 

How would someone know that you believed that on Good Friday the Father laid on his Son the iniquity of us all? 

How would someone know you want today to be a Good Friday?

They would know it when they hear you whisper those same words of Jesus on the cross amidst your own sorrow and suffering. “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”

When you are afflicted and crushed, we’ll know you believe God’s Friday is a Good Friday when you whisper the words of God’s Son. 

Why is today called Good Friday?

Because one by one, Christians quietly choose to respond with God’s good forgiveness when we are sinned against – like what our Father in Heaven did for us on that day long ago.

It’s always been God’s Friday.

Through our response to the Father’s forgiveness, our lives, our words, our forgiving just as God forgave us – this will become the best answer to the annual question: Why is today called Good Friday?

The Art of Being with People You Lead

In the ongoing work of the YMCA, everything we do is for people, we are a busy action-oriented organization.

But in the grind of getting stuff done, we have to be more intentional and present to those we are doing the work with and for.

Every once in awhile I need to read through some aphorisms (short, pithy sayings that capture a truth in a memorable and insightful way).

Here’s some aphorisms that struck me as timely and relevant regarding leadership, being with people, the art of presence.

In my work with the YMCA, everything we do is for people, we are a busy action-oriented organization.

But in the grind of getting stuff done, we have to be more intentional and present to those we are doing the work with and for.

Love is action. Love is also patient and kind.

When we get drained from doing, being authentically present and genuinely attentive to those in our midst can fill up our tank, and theirs too.

There is an art to learning how to be with the people you lead: you are to be there for them more than they are there for you – it’s about them, not you as the leader.

These aphorisms on leadership, presence, kindness and faith have been with me for over fifteen years, and I share them with you now, some may be familiar, some new.

Enjoy!

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Voltaire

We should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemies as if he were one day to be our friend.

Cardinal Newman

People are not motivated by failure; they are motivated by achievement and recognition.

F.F. Fournies

You can impress people from a distance. You can impact people only from up close.

Will Richert

You get more of the behavior you reward. You don’t get what you hope for, ask for, wish for, or beg for. You get what you reward.

Michel Le Boeuf

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

George S. Patton

I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun.

John D. Rockefeller

I hold it more important to have the player’s confidence than their affection.

Vince Lombardi

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

John C. Maxwell

The art of dealing with people is the foremost secret of successful men. A man’s success in handling people is the very yardstick by which the outcome of his whole life’s work is measured.

Paul C. Packer

I’ll yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under the spirit of criticism.

Charles Schwab

There are no ordinary people.

You have never talked to an ordinary mortal….

It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors….

Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.

C.S. Lewis
*all quotes above taken from Never Scratch a Tiger with a Short Stick by Gordon S. Jackson

And some more quotes that I hold on to…

It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.

Soren Kierkegaard

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

Blaise Pascal

For many of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.

John Ortberg

When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older I admire kind people.

Abraham J. Heschel

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.

George Bernard Shaw

Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.

Scott Adams

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Bishop Desmond Tutu

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

Abraham Lincoln

Mercy, detached from justice, grows unmerciful.

C.S. Lewis

A Prayer for YMCA Leaders : when we feel lost, in error and without life

In those moments, when as a YMCA leader you feel overwhelmed, adrift, lost in your spirit, alone in your anxiety, yearning to have the lifelessness of your Y transformed into vibrant energy – this prayer of Kierkegaard is for you.

“Father in heaven, let your voice come to me, be heard by me, even though it overtake me where I live secluded and alone.

You, my Lord Jesus Christ, you who came into the world to save those who were lost, look for me even in my errors where I hide myself from you and from others; let me hear your voice, let me know and follow it.

You, O Holy Spirit, breathe for me in inexpressible sighs, bring life to me though I am a barren tree.

You who bears again to life those who are already dead, you who gives youth to the aged, create in me a new heart.

You who with motherly care protects everything in which there is a spark of life, send forth the growth that you would have for me.”

based on/adapted from “The Prayers of Kierkegaard,” no 47 by Ole Anthony

Using our YMCA Core Values to stir up our spirit and mind, to rattle us and convict us, to encourage and guide us, authenticity is more about responsible honesty than unencumbered identity-declarations, about caring for ourself and others in a mutually respectful way.

Our authenticity ought to stimulate not just boundaries on who we think we are, but humility about who we really are, which includes the darkness alongside the light, the good and evil intertwined within us, the beautiful and ugly that is us.

In the YMCA our leadership is often defined by our character, our programs are successful when stories emerge of how the character-building emphasis worked; as my friend Dave at the Parkview Family YMCA quips: “transformed people transform people.”

Spiritual authenticity is more than just declaring what you believe about spirituality and expecting respect for it, it’s actually being honest and responsible for your own spirit, it’s health, and how it is doing in reality, in real life.

It’s about taking responsibility for the health of your spirit and doing the work so that it grows in its capacity to care for all in a mutually respectful way.

Authentic spirituality which doesn’t expand in its capacity to love is just a clanging gong or clashing symbols out of tune with reality.

At the YMCA, when we are authentic about our origins, about our motivations for why we got started, about the foundation we build on, about the roots which nourish our growth, it also requires honesty about the failures and hurts that have come through the YMCA. not just institutionally, but personally – the Y is all about people and building a healthy spirit, mind and body for all using Christian principles in practical ways. And for all the times we get it right, someone can point to ways we didn’t.

In those moments, when as a YMCA leader you feel authentically overwhelmed, adrift, lost in your spirit, alone in your anxiety, yearning to have the lifelessness of your Y transformed into vibrant energy – this prayer of Kierkegaard is for you.

He was writing in Denmark around the time George Williams was launching the Y.M.C.A. in England, and though his writings weren’t that popular when the Paris Basis was being crafted, Kierkegaard was “discovered” after the horrific tumult of the Great War, which was a shining moment for the Y, but also a dying of the world’s hope for peace in the world.

The Holocaust, the Atomic Bomb, the Cold War, global terrorism, genocides – this reality of YMCA members around the world ought to still way heavy on all Y members – in solidarity – and in accord with the prayer of Jesus in John 17:21 “that they all may be one.”

This means not just in our salvation and reconciliation but also in our empathy and practical actions of love.

And in that suffering is when we too often (if we quit avoiding this stark and disturbing reality) feel lost, in error, and without life. This is why the writings of Kierkegaard and his prayers continue to be sought out, for he seeks to get at the real, our actual lived existence, us, me, I – known and loved by God.

Maybe everything is fine for you in your life and family, your YMCA branch members and staff; but if we were going to be authentic, it’s not all we hope and pray for…yet; in the meantime keep honestly praying to the Lord, in humility and openness, like this prayer of Kierkegaard:

“Father in heaven, let your voice come to me, be heard by me, even though it overtake me where I live secluded and alone.

You, my Lord Jesus Christ, you who came into the world to save those who were lost, look for me even in my errors where I hide myself from you and from others; let me hear your voice, let me know and follow it.

You, O Holy Spirit, breathe for me in inexpressible sighs, bring life to me though I am a barren tree.

You who bears again to life those who are already dead, you who gives youth to the aged, create in me a new heart.

You who with motherly care protects everything in which there is a spark of life, send forth the growth that you would have for me.”

based on/adapted from “The Prayers of Kierkegaard,” no 47 by Ole Anthony

May the Grace and Peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.