“Why is Good Friday good, Nana?” asks my grandbean. The child knows very well what happened on that long-ago day. The day Christians remember the gruesome death of Jesus Christ, crucified at Calvary, just outside the gates of Jerusalem. On a cross not much different from the one in our backyard. Rough wood; old and rugged.
That cross towers over the raspberry patch. A previous owner used it to hold up the far end of the clothesline. It still does that, but it does something else, too. It reminds me of what’s good about Good Friday.
In autumn, the shedding season (perhaps my favourite), our clothesline cross reminds me that love costs. That the blood of Christ, streaming the length of his cross, made it possible for the likes of you and me to be at peace with God. “Good” isn’t a big or deep or wide enough word to describe that.
Mid-winter, the cross stands snow-covered, superimposed over the bare trees just beyond. As though it has emerged from them. I remember then, that Calvary’s cross first grew up graceful. Green. That even in the winter of our waning world (and the whine of my darkest days) Jesus’ death planted seeds of eternal spring. Of confessed sin, washed white as snow. Of meaning for all my days. And of the hope of unending life beyond life for believers. A hope sealed by Christ’s resurrection. And that’s beyond good, too.
Good Friday comes to mind during spring and summer as well, when adult wrens, returning from their wanderings, fly to the far side of the cross and swoop into the opening of the wren house hanging there. When they pop out ecstatic and perch on the crossbar to sing. Full warble. Heads back. Throats pulsating.
I know that song. Christian believers around the world have sung it. Clear. Joyful. The homecoming song of a soul turning - and returning - to faith. To the freedom found in the truth of resurrected Saviour. He who spelled in spilled blood God’s love for the world, no matter its madness.
During the nesting season, before the chicks fledge, their parents chatter fierce warnings as we pick raspberries: Come no closer. We inhabit here. Our offspring we’re raising here. And make no mistake: we will defend our home. Such audacity on the part of a one-ounce bird. To challenge me, an adult female human. But I heed the warning. God gave wrens things I don’t have: a needle-sharp beak, swift wings and lion-sized courage.
I think of Calvary then, too, and pray for a wren’s determination to abide at Christ’s cross. To bring others into its shelter. To rest in the central doctrine of the Christian faith: our good God, giving his only Son to invite a global collection of whosoevers to share rich, eternal bounty.
What’s good about Good Friday? Ah, Bean. Let’s start over. Come with me to the far end of the clothesline...
