Why is Friday Good?

I have heard this question many times, from friends or on TV, usually said as a joke. But this year I really got to thinking about it. Why is Good Friday so good?

And this question was brought into sharp relief to me by recent tragic events in Japan. How can there be a good God when such massive destruction and death is happening in our world. I really had to think long and hard about this. And what follows is my opinion, because I am totally conjecturing about things I cannot know for sure. But I am trying to pull from the facts and evidence I do have to draw my conclusions.

I recently saw an interview with Rob Bell being conducted by Martin Bashir. The interview was about Bell's new book Love Wins, but occurred just after the tsunami in Japan. Bashir asks, "Which of these is true? Either God is all powerful but doesn't care about the people of Japan or their suffering. Or He does care about the people of Japan, but He's not all powerful. Which one is it?" Bell fumbles a bit with the answer, trying to express that these are not the only two options, but he eventually pushes Bashir to get back to an easier topic, his controversial new book. So if an internationally known pastor who has published multiple books doesn't have a quick answer to this, I won't feel bad if I don't either.

But I can't cop out of the question. It is one that so many people are asking right now. I don't except either of Bashir's options. I don't feel like those are the only choices. Another option I reject is that there is no God at all. So with those possibilities out of the way, what is left?

On the day God made man, the day He formed him out of the dust, made Adam in His image, and breathed life into him, God struck a hard bargain. He decided to give us freedom. We would not be robots or automotons. We would not even be like the angels. We would be creatures that are free to choose to have a relationship with God... or not. To even be capable of this relationship, though, we must really be free to choose it.

On the day He made us, God chose freedom. But He knew this choice would have consequences. He knew it meant that we could choose to disobey and leave fellowhip with him, which is what Adam and Eve did. But without the ability to choose, no real relationship could be had, good or bad. Ironically, because of man's choice, God again moved to make it possible for us to find our way back to Him, even after we disobeyed. He called to us and reached for us and loved us. And yet He realized that because of what had happened and because of how we are made, we can never be good enough on our own. We can never do enough to make atonement for our sins. We can never get to Him through our own strength. On the day God gave us freedom, I think he knew that the consequence would be the suffering and death of his own son for us. But he chose to give us freedom anyway.

If God intervened every time a human may suffer, he would be choosing to take away our freedom. First, I want to establish the fact that every single person's suffering is as important to that person as any one elses. We just celebrated or are about to celebrate the anniversary of several tragedies. The Oklahoma City bombing, Waco, the Gulf oil spill, the Tennessee Flood of May 2010, and the start of the Civil War to name a few. People died during each of these events. Everytime a mother loses a child, or a husband loses a wife, or anyone loses anyone else, suffering occurs. So if we expect God to intervene in Japan, then we should expect it in every case, every time there is pain, heart ache and despair. Even when one man is perpetrating evil against another, innocents are victimized. We have to wonder why God didn't stop it.  

The problem is, if he gave us freedom but then controlled our environment to the degree of preventing all suffering, it would essentially result in our love for Him being forced. A relationship where one person forces the other to love him or her is no relationship at all. Under such a scenario, our actions would become the result of programming. So the day God allowed us to choose, He also had to know that He was allowing us to suffer too. And that He was going to have to watch this happen without stopping it, even though He loves us and wants none of His little ones to suffer. It was and is a conundrum. But He had to know it was worth it. That our freedom was worth the cost.

What I am proposing is that there is an all powerful God, and that he cares. Because he wants us to be free, He Himself has had to suffer, and He still suffers to see the pain in our world. But He knows that the rules of this universe must remain unbroken and our freedom to choose must stay in tact in order that we are able to have a real relationship with Him. Is that just some naive way of coping with the horror of our world? Maybe. But I feel like it is the logical conclusion one must reach from the facts given. God didn't stop the wave in Japan. He didn't sheild and protect those babies in the Oklahoma federal building. My friend Ned was washed away in the flood. But God is not impotent, and God still cares.

So where does prayer enter into this discussion? The existence of Biblically mandated prayer seems to go against all that I am saying here. "Ask and you shall receive" makes no sense if God is not going to intervene into our world to give us what we are asking for. But I will say two things to this. Firstly, maybe it is the act of prayer itself that changes things and, for lack of a better word, "allows" changes to be made. Maybe it is what happens in our bodies and minds when we pray or what happens in our actions when we pray that "allows" prayers to be answered. Or maybe God does intervene directly at times in response to our specific prayers, just because He can and He wants to. It is definitely a mystery.

But here is the thing, if we don't engage the mystery we can never really know God. We need to be thinking about these things, puzzling them out, looking at other angles or different options. Are there questions? Only about a bazillion. But there are also answers that we can find and struggle with. And if we don't think about these things in response to tragedy, we are going to be left only with the two options, the two gods, one impotent and the other uncaring. And the question ringing in our ear, "Which one is it?"

Instead of being left with this question, as we approach good Friday, I think of that day long ago and that choice. A God who knew what freedom would mean, for good and for ill, and yet gave it to us anyway. A Son who said, yes, I know that they won't be able to make it right on their own, but I will go and make it right for them. A love that can be shared by all. A way to have a relationship with the Trinity. It really is good. Difficult, humbling, angering, and mysterious. But so good.