As Easter comes each year, we Christians celebrate life that overcomes death, the resurrection of the body and of creation, and the life eternal God promises us through Jesus.
Our celebration does not come without grief, however. There is no Easter without Good Friday. Those who loved Jesus and who saw him put to death on the cross grieved him deeply; they prepared his body for burial having no idea what was to come Easter morning.
Even though we have the benefit of knowing the rest of the story—that death is not the end—this knowledge does not make the pain of our own personal Good Fridays any easier.
This message is an excerpt from “The Grief of Good Friday” by Catherine Malotky in the April 2019 issue of Gather magazine. Today is Good Friday. We remember Mikael Agricola, Bishop of Turku, who died in 1557.
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