That’s a great question.  Good Friday commemorates the day that the Savior of the World died on the cross.  Frankly, that doesn’t sound good.  It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that should be commemorated, or celebrated.  Rather, it seems like something that should be mourned. What a terrible thing it is that God’s Son came into the world to save the world and the men of the world murdered him.  That sounds, for all the world, like something that someone should be punished for.  For a long time people called the Jewish people “Christ Killers” as though they took Jesus’ life away from him. 

But that is looking at the whole thing backward.  Ordinarily, if the hero of the story is killed in the process of doing his job, it would be a tragedy since what the hero was trying to do was cut short and the end result was failure.  But in this case, the hero of the story, Jesus, could not possibly succeed in his mission unless he carried out the core of that mission which was to be punished and to die for the sins of all mankind.  Without the death of Jesus, our sins, and the sins of every person in the world, would remain and would demand the proper punishment for sin.  That punishment is death.  For us that would be eternal death.  But Jesus DID accomplish his mission and he paid for your sins and for my sins, and for the sins of everyone that calls upon his name.  Jesus died, so that you and I don’t have to die.  He died that you and I may live.  It is just that simple.  And it is just that Glorious.

On Good Friday, the people of God gather to mourn their sins which made Jesus’ sacrifice necessary and that is a sad thing to contemplate.  We also remember that there are many people in the world who have not accepted Jesus’ gift, and that is a sad thing to think about as well, because they will needlessly pay the price of their own sins.  We also remember that Jesus so loved us that he suffered the punishment that rightfully was ours and gave his own life for us.  On Good Friday, we celebrate that, on Judgment Day because of Jesus’ heroic sacrifice, we are told that we will escape the punishment that we deserve and will instead receive the crown of Everlasting Life in the eternal embrace of God. 

On that Friday, the first Good Friday, The Lamb of God laid down his own life willingly and sacrificially because He loved you and I and anyone who will accept his gift.  The gift of everlasting life.  That is indeed a very good thing and that makes Good Friday very good indeed.