Word Play - A virtuous, desirable day

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Good Friday, April 15th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

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EICHER: Well, as you’ve heard us say already, today is Good Friday, the day we remember Christ’s crucifixion. Have you ever wondered how that day of all days came to be called ‘good?’ Our resident wordsmith George Grant has an explanation, on this month’s Word Play.

GEORGE GRANT, COMMENTATOR: Our word “good” comes from the 8th century Anglo-Saxon gōd, a cognate with Old Norse, High German, and Dutch terms meaning that which is “virtuous or desirable” and that which is “valid or considerable, having the right or suitable quality.” It is an expression of deep satisfaction with whatever is “pleasing, beautiful, or fit.”

Good: what a peculiar word to describe the day of Christ’s crucifixion. What could possibly be “good” about Good Friday?

The answer, of course, is provided by another peculiar and etymologically related word: “grace.” It passed into English from a 12th century French-Latinate term meaning “pardon, mercy, favor, thanks, elegance, or virtue.” It is the direct predecessor of the Italian grazi and the Spanish gracias. The Hebrew and Greek words translated as “grace” in the Bible literally mean the outpouring of God’s “unearned favor and unmerited mercy.” They portray the idea of a “bending, stooping kindness from a superior to an inferior.”

Good Friday is “good” because it was the day when “grace” was consummately displayed.

He who knew no sin, was made to be sin for us. He who had never been guilty bore all our guilt. He who had known only perfect fellowship with the Father clothed Himself in the perversity of our concupiscence and lasciviousness—and thus became anathema, separated from God that we might not be, forsaken that we might never be. “The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” just as Isaiah had long before prophesied. As Paul would later write, “He became a curse for us.”

He was cruelly, unjustly punished. He who had obeyed perfectly, He who had only loved, only healed, only reconciled was wounded on our behalf. Though He was very God of very God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped: He made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. And, being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. He was crucified for us and for our salvation, taking our shame, receiving our chastisement, bearing our guilt. This is precisely why He came. He lived to die!

What could possibly be “good” about Good Friday? The answer is simply that Good Friday is good because it was the day of amazing grace.

As the hymn writer Julia Johnson exclaimed: “Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, freely bestowed on all who believe; you that are longing to see His face, will you this moment His grace receive? Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within; grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all our sin.”

That is indeed very, very good. Blessed Good Friday—may His grace abound to you.

I’m George Grant.

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