| Easter Without Good Friday - by Joel Hempel Most of the Easter-going world skips over Good Friday. Either they don’t know the Salvation story, or they see it as just another workday. Even many Christians don’t give it much thought. They jump from Palm Sunday to Easter – one celebration after the other. I wonder how Jesus feels about that? I want to be understanding of those who skip a Good Friday remembrance, but it is a challenge for me because I know what they are missing. They are missing the suffering, and not just anyone’s suffering. They are missing the suffering of Jesus. They aren’t letting themselves stop and look at Jesus in Gethsemane wrestling with his fear, his anxiety, his resistance, and then his final submission to the Father’s will. They aren’t seeing Jesus on the cross, his body drooping, his blood dripping, and his eyes weeping. They are missing the reason for Easter. It’s not just that there can’t be a resurrection without a death; there can’t be our salvation without the cross! We have a lot to gain by looking at the pain. We have Jesus’ love to see. Not just any love, but incomprehensible love that willingly sacrifices himself for us. Looking won’t see it all. We never will. The measure of his love and the degree of his suffering are beyond our understanding. The weight of our sin bearing down upon him and the rejection Jesus experienced from the Father can’t really register because it is unimaginable. And yet, we look! And imagine what life would be like without Easter. What follows Good Friday is not Easter. What follows Jesus’ death is Saturday – a day of deep mourning. The tomb is not yet empty. With the original followers of Jesus, we feel the loss, the emptiness, the hopelessness. Jesus is dead! | 
