![The REAL Meaning of Good Friday [feat. Matt Maher]](https://ichoosejoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Matt-Maher-Good-Friday-Featured-Image-2025-1680x0-c-default.jpg)
Why Do We Call It ‘Good’ When Jesus Dies?
On this day, Jesus was betrayed, beaten, mocked, and ultimately crucified. His followers scattered. His mother wept. The sky turned dark. And yet, we call it… Good?
Matt Maher points out something striking about Good Friday:
“It’s a bold claim for Christians right now to have a day where we don’t say at the end of it, ‘God wins.’ But we kind of sit in the tension of ‘He died.’”
This is the one day where we don’t rush to the victory of the resurrection.
That’s uncomfortable. We naturally want to move quickly to the hope of Easter Sunday, but Good Friday reminds us to slow down. To feel the loss. To recognize the cost of our eternal life.
So why is it Good?
Because in the darkest moment of history, God was carrying out the greatest act of love. Jesus willingly bore the full weight of human suffering and sin, embracing death. He entered into the very thing that every human will one day face, so that through Him, we might have life.
Good Friday is good—not because of what happens that day, but because of what it makes possible.
Good Friday helps us learn to sit in grief
Suffering is something we try to avoid or at least get past as quickly as possible.
But Good Friday invites us to sit in the sorrow and recognize that suffering is a part of the human experience.
“Suffering is an inescapable part of humanity. And it really goes from there, from the Last Supper all the way to the cross, and in it, we see Jesus really embracing the totality of human suffering.”
– Matt Maher
Jesus didn’t just suffer physically; He experienced the full weight of human pain—emotional agony, spiritual turmoil, and deep grief.
Lament is something many of us don’t know how to do, but it’s deeply biblical. The Psalms are filled with raw, honest cries to God:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?"
(Psalm 22:1)
Jesus Himself quoted these very words from the cross. He wasn’t afraid to express deep sorrow before God, and neither should we.
A Reflection for Today:
What grief, loss, or suffering are you carrying? Instead of rushing to fix it or silence it, bring it before God. Let yourself sit in it, knowing that Jesus fully understands suffering. He is present in your pain, holding space for your lament.
The Silence of Saturday: Waiting in Uncertainty
If Good Friday is about suffering, then Saturday is about silence.
“What was that like for His followers to go through the next day and a half and not have any certainty?”
-Matt Maher
We don’t often think about this. Jesus was dead. The tomb was sealed. The disciples were scattered, confused, and afraid.
Had they been wrong this whole time?
The disciples had Jesus’ words about resurrection, but in the midst of their grief, it must have felt impossible to believe. We, too, have God’s promises, but when we’re stuck in the middle of suffering, doubt creeps in.
And yet—God was still working. Even when all seemed lost, Jesus’ victory was already in motion. The grave would not hold Him.
A Reflection for Today:
Are you in a season of waiting? A season where God feels silent? Holy Saturday teaches us to hold on. To trust that even when we don’t see the outcome, God is still moving. Today, take a moment to sit in the silence—not as a sign of despair, but as an act of trust. The story isn’t over yet.
Good Friday reminds us that the story isn’t over
Good Friday is heavy. Saturday is uncertain. But Easter Sunday changes everything.
Matt Maher says, “I think I need the reality of the resurrection every day of my life.” And he’s right—because without it, suffering would have the final word. But the cross wasn’t the end of the story. Jesus defeated death by stepping into it.
“He used death to destroy death.”
– Matt Maher
This is the hope of Easter: that no matter how dark Friday is or how silent Saturday feels, Sunday is coming. New life is coming.
The grave does not get the final say.
A Reflection for Today:
Whatever season you’re in, remember: suffering is real, waiting is hard, but resurrection is certain. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is alive in you. Today, let Easter hope fill your heart. Because of Jesus, life—not death—has the final word.
Death, where is your sting?
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Read This Conversation with Matt Maher
Kim:
Good Friday is one of the most beautiful services of the year because oftentimes we don’t sit in the reality of what at the cross was. And I would love to hear you just share on that and what that means to you, Good Friday service.
Matt Maher:
I think when we think about Easter and we think about the resurrection of Jesus, or we think about the cross, we don’t necessarily sometimes think about them as one sort of continuous journey. The thing about the journey it creates, I think, an entry point for people who are experiencing a lot of suffering in their life, in all the different forms that it can take. It could be physical, it could be emotional, it could be mental, it could be spiritual, but suffering is an inescapable part of humanity. And it really goes from there, from the Last Supper all the way to the cross, and in it, we see Jesus really embracing the totality of human suffering. We see him embracing anxiety in the garden, loneliness, the temptation to feel abandoned by God, to be ridiculed and mocked for his faith, for who he is, to be tortured, beaten.
Matt Maher:
Watching the reaction of his closest followers, I think about the disciple, John, leaning on Jesus on Holy Thursday, and just that sense of intimacy. Less than 24 hours later, he’s the only guy standing at the foot of the cross with Jesus’ mother and everyone else is just kind of abandoned him. We think about Peter who’s like, “Lord, I’ll never forsake you. I’ll never deny you to the world.” And Jesus is like, actually, you’re going to do it three times. Peter’s anger, cutting off a soldier’s ear, his sort of that thing of lashing out and Jesus even rebuking him for that. In all of those things, we see a God who’s trying to hold capacity for everyone and all of their responses.
So when we get to Good Friday, when I get to Good Friday, to me, all of that is there. And the good news about all of that being there is that no matter what’s going on in my life, because of the story of the resurrection and how it comes through the passion and death of Jesus, I can experience that encounter with Christ, no matter what my life looks like. And then the last thing I want to say, the thing about Good Friday is it’s a bold claim for Christians right now to have a day where we don’t say at the end of it, God wins.
Kim:
Yes.
Matt Maher:
But we kind of sit in the tension of he died.
Kim:
Yes.
Matt Maher:
What was that like for his followers to go through the next day and a half and not have any certainty? And I think everyone can relate to that, but also begin to, with faith, journey through that, those moments of uncertainty and doubt.
Kim:
Yeah. I think when I first really started to appreciate the Good Friday service and have a better understanding of it was after I’d lost my parents. And I lost them within a year. And I just remember sitting at that first Good Friday, just feeling grief at a different level, and then realizing, wait a minute, it’s so much more than just you go to your Friday service because you can’t wait to get to Sunday. And that was probably the first time I’d really connected the dots of the grieving and the sitting and the lamenting because I hadn’t really learned how to lament before.
Matt Maher:
Yeah. I think it’s one of the hardest things that we don’t know how to do. The reality that we’re all going to die, it’s central to the mystery of the cross. And it’s because we’re going to die, that’s why Jesus had to. You know what I mean?
Kim:
Right.
Matt Maher:
That’s why his death is an atoning sacrifice. He used death to destroy death.
Kim:
Yes. Turning that corner to Easter. To the Sunday, to he has risen. Christ Has Risen is one of, in my personal opinion, the best songs ever. And I wonder as the person who wrote it, do you sing that with a new awe or a new revelation on Easter Sunday, when you, when you hear songs like that?
Matt Maher:
Oh, for sure. I think I need the reality of the resurrection every day of my life, but there is something powerful about on Easter Sunday of singing those words. And it’s amazing, even knowing, like I said, that that song was inspired by a sermon, that at one point it was preached. What that must have been like for the believers there.
Kim:
I did not know that.
Matt Maher:
Yeah. As they’re reading, they’re telling the story of the resurrection, maybe they’re reading letters. This is before the formation of the scriptures. And what a powerful reminder that must have been for people to have this sort of bold faced joy in opposition to persecution, to disease, to sickness, to grief, all of it, that in the middle of all that, that’s where new life begins. And that’s where the power of the resurrection starts to work in our lives.
This has not gotten nearly enough attention! This is a fantastic interview full of so much great insight. It welcomed me in to just sit and reflect on what it must have been like, to be there, to be a follower, not a disciple like one of the 12 but just someone who believed. Who heard the news or saw the miracles and now here we are at this moment. I am so glad I found this on Wednesday evening. It helps me prepare a little differently for this Friday. Replay it on the radio! To good to not have 1000 comments!