TGIF

It was chilly last night here in the bay area. It made me feel even more sympathetic for the three young men strapped to crucifixes at the neighborhood Catholic church. They were hanging there in the biblical equivalent of adult diapers, and I found myself wondering for the umpteenth time why anybody would consider this "Good Friday."
To begin with, just about once a week my wife rolls over as I am heading out the door and tells me to smile because "it's Friday." I usually give her a smirk and head to the door, knowing that Fridays are inevitably packed full of strange curiosities before the working day is done. I cringe in anticipation of all the things that can still go wrong before the last bell is rung. I'm more of a "half-empty" kind of guy.
Which is exactly why I keep wondering who decided to call the day that Christ was nailed to a cross "Good Friday." Thanks to Al Gore's Internet, I can ask the Catholic Encyclopedia - take it away: "The origin of the term Good is not clear. Some say it is from "God's Friday" (Gottes Freitag); others maintain that it is from the German Gute Freitag, and not specially English. Sometimes, too, the day was called Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons; so today in Denmark." Now if I'm the guy hanging from somebody's poor excuse for a carpentry metaphor, I'm going to have to go along with that "Long Friday" idea. It also brings to mind the Bob Hoskins gangster film, "The Long Good Friday" - though I'm not sure I have a great allusion or connection to make beyond the title, but feel free to discuss this at your next Bible and Modern Film roundtable.
Finally, it reminds me that it is time once again to bring out all the tired but effective jokes that will eventually keep me from ascending to the kingdom of heaven. Maybe that's why it's called Good Friday.