Thanks to an all-star cast and a big budget, we are familiar with the phrase ‘The Longest Day’. We hardly notice the close connection between a massive military operation and the summer solstice but the empty up-turned helmet on a beach makes us stop and think. Why name it so? It was a day long in daylight and long in another sense. We use the word when we speak of long-suffering or a long haul. If we use the idiom ‘in the long run’ we refer to a continuing state of activity and its climax.
Perhaps it was with these overtones in mind that our Nordic ancestors came to call today not Good Friday but Long Friday. English-speaking people owing allegiance to King Alfred and King Harold commonly referred to Long Friday. That usage is still in use today in Scandinavian languages. When we speak of Good Friday, we mean Holy Friday, just as when we say ‘the Good Book’ we mean ‘the Holy Bible’. Whether Good or Long, the words are singularly meaningful.
Long or Good, today is a day of memory and more. If we look at it in the long run – in the course of a good man’s life, as we might say – the day was an appalling one. A man who went about doing good and, incidentally, upsetting the religious establishment, was done to death in front of those who had benefited from his activity. And not only that, he was the Son of God and the author of our salvation. No wonder this proved to be a turning-point in human history. Its implications are terrifying – and in the understanding of Christians profoundly beneficial. Here is something to make us wonder – and make us thankful.
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