Date: April 17, 2025
Tomorrow the Seminary is closed. We take the pause to remember the true significance of Good Friday. The etymology of Good here is from the contraction of God’s Friday – in much the same way as Goodbye is a contraction of God be with you. It is God’s Friday because we remember that God is present in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth.
It is the moment when God identifies will all the hurt and heartache in the world. Countless lives are finding everything so difficult. On the cross, we can see God’s identification with all those who are in agony.
Our task to sit with this reality. And as we enter Easter Sunday, we are reminded that God does not want a suffering world. Our task shifts from the identification of God with suffering to the challenge of doing everything we can to alleviate that suffering. We have work to do friends.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D.
Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary and the President of The General Theological Seminary