Augustine Sokolovski
On Good Friday, the Church commemorates the death on the Cross of the Lord Jesus. It is a sad day. It is a day of silence.
On Good Friday, the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated. This is because the day before, on Maundy Thursday, the Last Supper was commemorated. The Last Supper has no end. It spreads its light throughout all the hours that follow until Holy Saturday, when the commemoration of Jesus' Resurrection from the dead begins.
Good Friday is a day of sadness. But it is by no means pure mourning. It is by no means a sorrow, like the mourning caused by the death of a person. As the Apostle Paul writes: "Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has dominion over him" (Rom. 6:9). Christ is alive and reigns in the universe every day. The Kingdom of Christ has no temporary exceptions.
Everyday things have hidden theological tectonics. It often happens that the further people move away from the Church and sacred space, in their upbringing and behavior, the more dependent they become on these hidden foundations. However, these foundations sometimes begin to act in distorted ways.
Thus, according to a well-known superstition, Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day. Why is this so? There are many possible explanations. According to the Gospel, the Lord Jesus was crucified on the eve of Passover, which fell on the 14th day of the biblical month of Nisan, Saturday. Friday the 13th is the day of Christ's crucifixion. For us, Orthodox Christians, this seems obvious.
To understand Good Friday, an example from classical Protestantism will be helpful. In Switzerland, in Zurich, and in other Protestant cantons, whose denomination dates back to the tradition of John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, Good Friday is a very important celebration, in no way inferior to Easter. After all, Christ died on the Cross. He died for us. All our sins are forgiven.
This perception of Good Friday seems unusual to us Orthodox Christians, to say the least. But it is important to know this. It is not heretical, and in fact, it helps us better understand the essence of Good Friday. The founders of Protestantism were inspired by the ancient Fathers of the Church. Sometimes, their understanding animates our meanings.
In the Orthodox liturgical tradition, Matins on Holy Saturday are celebrated on Friday evening. In some places, for example, at the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, it is celebrated on the night of Friday into Saturday, which is exactly as prescribed. But in most churches, Saturday Matins are celebrated in advance.
At the liturgical heart of this service is the reading of the 17th Kathisma, with verses for the burial of the Lord. The 17th Kathisma is the 118th psalm, the longest in the Psalter. The content of this psalm is a prayer of the righteous to God for their protection and justification. The Holy Fathers believed that this prayer was the voice of the Lord Jesus from the Tomb.
By analogy with the Good Friday service, the 17th Kathisma is read in the complete rite of panikhida for the deceased and, of course, during the farewell funeral service for the Orthodox. After all, every Christian is like Jesus Christ through their participation in His death and resurrection at Baptism. This is an astonishing, mysterious, and awe-inspiring correspondence between the life and death of Christ and those who believe in Him.
When a person constantly prays and reads the Scriptures, their body, even if immobilized by death, is revived by the infinite power of divine words they spoke during their life. This is one of the reasons for the Orthodox veneration of the relics of saints. “I sleep the sleep of death, but my heart awakes” (cf. Song 5:2). “The love of the divine word is stronger than death” (cf. Song 8:6). This is a possible paraphrase of the words of the Song of Songs – the pinnacle of biblical mystical theology.
Christ is risen. His body is not in the Tomb. But His sacraments remain in the Church. The Holy Fathers taught that the sacraments are the relics of the Savior.
As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God! "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God," sings the psalm (Psalm 41:2-3). Good Friday is a time to make a vow to God to run to the sacraments, in the words of the psalm, like a deer to the water springs.