Early in the 21st century, Steve Hindalong and Derald Daughtry wrote a contemporary hymn entitled " Beautiful, Scandalous Night", the oxymoronic title describing the mystery of Good Friday:

"Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore
Be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified

At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night
You and me were atoned by His blood
And forever washed white
On that beautiful scandalous night"

 Starting with its very name, Good Friday is a study in contradictions.  Good Friday is about the tragic joy of a flawless Son of God becoming both flesh and forsaken so humanity - never ceasing to strive selfishly to elevate itself as deity - could become children of God.  Good Friday is about an eternal Messiah dying on a Roman cross so mortals could have eternal life.   It is about seeing the face of the unsee-able God through a darker shade of clear. 

Good Friday is about people's propensity to be blinded by a gleaming darkness, then catching a glimpse of an unending Light getting snuffed out in death. It's about wondering, worrying, waiting, wanting fulfillment to an oft-prophesied promise few would understand. 

Good Friday is about death and life switching seats; the eternal and the temporal trading places.  It is about hope springing from hopelessness. It's about healing coming through hurt; salvation through suffering; beauty through bleeding; exultation through execution. 

Good Friday is about the total redemption of the universe being carried out in a silent,  lifeless tomb.

It is about pure Grace, Love, Peace and Mercy suffering, bleeding, humiliated and forsaken...

 And somehow knowing it is good.

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