Good Friday for Orthodox Christians is the saddest and most tragic day of the whole year. There is no greater tragedy and shame in the entire human history than the event of the crucifixion of the Son of God. It is a day of our grief and spiritual sorrow, because of the great injustice that mankind has inflicted on the Savior of the world
On Good Friday, Jesus of Nazareth, God and man, died on the cross. In Orthodox churches, the evening services on this day mark the time of death and removal from the cross of the body of the Lord, when the shroud is placed on a specially decorated table in front of the altar, which symbolically represents the tomb of Christ.
Removing from the cross is a common motif in the paintings of great world artists.
Three times, with the sound of knocking, the faithful walk around the church, which symbolically represents the burial of Christ. The shroud is then laid in front of the altar. The day is spent in silence and prayer.
All work in the house and the field is stopped, the most important work on Good Friday is coloring eggs in red, a symbol of the shed blood of Christ and the new life that is born from his conscious sacrifice. The first red egg is called a guardian egg, it is kept in a special place so that it does not break. It is attributed special properties – healing, fruitfulness, protection from the city and evil forces. If you don’t color your eggs on Good Friday, you can color them the next day, before the sun.
Today we fast strictly, who can – does not eat anything, others only dry bread and water. Even those who did not fast during the previous days of Lent.
Like Christ who recently cried for his close friend Lazarus, so we today, seeing the Lord crucified on the Cross, weep with tears of sincere regret! Although He testifies for Himself that the Son of Man goes as it is written, it is too difficult for each of us to accept the reality that the Son of God was crucified by ungodly people. After shameful mockery and humiliation, after horrible torture and flogging, the Lord was brought before the executioners. Standing today before the holy shroud, which symbolically depicts the tomb of Christ, we realize how far humanity has really gone in its sin and lawlessness, to crucify the one who gave him salvation and eternal life. For what evil or for what sin? For what lawlessness or for what injustice? Simply without any guilt or trial, the eternal Judge of all is unjustly condemned, the giver of life is given to death!
The Son of God comes into the world to give people love, peace and salvation. Through His gospel mission, He frees us from the bondage of sin and the devil, and He confirms His teaching with saving miracles that he selflessly and abundantly brings to people. For He took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our sicknesses, and by His wound we were healed (Isa. 53: 3-5). The dead are resurrected, the lepers are cleansed, the blind see, the sick are healed, the sinners are set free. And what does humanity give him in return? Whipping, spitting, ridicule and crucifixion. And indeed, this day is the most terrible and tragic day since the creation of the world and humanity, because it testifies to how much malice and how much hatred the human heart can receive.
The devil believed that the crucifixion of Christ would bring an end to his unlimited love for man. If people killed the Son of God, then God needed to exterminate the human race – send some new flood that would destroy the ungrateful human race forever. But the idea of Satan turned into his greatest catastrophe and defeat, because it was through Christ’s death on the Cross that God testified in the greatest possible way how much he loves man. He testifies to the culmination of his love by praying for those who crucify him: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). That is why the crucifixion on the Cross is a symbol of the eternal love of God. It is love Divine, sincere, imperishable, heavenly, love that has no flaws and defects for it springs from God himself who is in his essence love. The cross is the eternal testimony that God never forsakes us and that his love abides forever with each of us.
The cross thus becomes an instrument of victory – a guarantee of our success and eternal life with God. That is why it is important for every believer today to understand all the saving mystery of the crucifixion, as a great event in the plan of salvation, which had to happen. The crucifixion gave a reward and atonement for all human sins! It was the price of our salvation. The Lord suffered the crucifixion for the sake of all humanity, but also for the sake of each individual. In other words, for my own sake. And that is why, today, standing before His holy tomb and shroud, I need to understand with my whole being the insanely great sacrifice He makes for me. The crucifixion event is truly a universal event in which the possibility of eternal life and spiritual perfection was revealed to every believer.
However, humanity is crucifying Christ again today. Even today, the western world, as the bearers of Christian civilization, are shouting again: crucify him, crucify him! The truth is only in a different way, which is in fact even more insidious and ungodly. Christ and the whole value of his gospel teaching is completely neglected. His Golgotha sacrifice that opened the door of salvation to us has been completely forgotten or replaced by new false principles. In this way, people are completely likened to the same mass of people, who more than two thousand years ago committed the greatest shame and lawlessness by crucifying the Son of God. The shameful act of the crucifixion of Christ is being committed today with much more lawlessness. Life without God and the Church, life with sin and service to the devil is nothing but the crucifixion of Christ again. Every man who lives sinfully today, who defiles the natural purity of the soul given to him by his sin, is completely identically likened to the lawless Jewish council. By enjoying sin, man crucifies his soul created in the image of God, thus crucifying Christ himself.
By professing our faith in the crucified Christ, we show our courage and ability to follow His saving and gospel path with our lives. The Golgotha Cross motivates us to walk the narrow gospel path, the path that Christ himself walked. A path that is thorny, sorrowful, but at the same time joyful and saving, a path that makes us true and worthy Christians and leads us to eternal life. Then we are likened to that small, but also sincere flock of Christ’s sheep that always follow him, to the few of his disciples who stood together with the Most Holy Mother of God and watched the crucifixion with great pain. That is the main message of this holy day – to always be spiritually strong and ready to carry my earthly cross with dignity, no matter how heavy it may be. Let us always have the memory of the Lord’s Cross and his Golgotha sacrifice, because in them we find the graceful power that leads us to eternal life.
Seeing the crucified Christ reveals even more the inexpressible joy and beauty of the Christian life. In the event of the crucifixion, we realize this boundless love that He carries within Himself for every man who seeks salvation. But we also realize the dignity, privilege, and responsibility of being his follower and disciple. Christ was pleased to be crucified for each of us. And will we also hear the joyful words heard by the prudent robber at His right side: Truly, I say to you, you will be with me in paradise today. Or we will be like the foolish robber on the left, it depends on us!