Good Friday is seen by many as a misnomer. How could this day be good when all the churches mark it by reading a story of betrayal and rejection by friends, and of false accusation? It is a story of wrongful arrest, the loss of hope, the destructive power of fear, the distress of humiliation, and the loneliness of abandonment.
It is a story of solitary death and a hurried burial in a strange grave. At first reading, Good Friday is certainly not a good story. Its awfulness is symbolised in the lonely image of the abandoned Christ, naked on the Cross, on a hill outside the city.
But Good Friday ought to be exactly that - Good Friday. The Gospel narratives end not with death and burial, but in hope and in new life. In Saint Matthew's account of the resurrection, the women who visit that lonely grave, and the guards who are placed outside it, are filled with fear. Yet the angel tells the women, "Do not be afraid" - advice that is repeated once again when they meet the Risen Christ. The women leave the tomb and the garden filled with both fear and joy.
The balance between fear and joy is difficult to maintain in a world of poverty and war, in a world facing climate change, in a world of political and economic uncertainty, where human rights are often ignored and trampled on and where women and children are usually the first victims of violence and abuse. But for those who want to speak out and who must speak out about these pressing issues, for those who demand change and justice, it is essential to balance fear and joy. To speak out can risk condemnation and isolation, and in many parts of the world, arrest and death. Yet, if they do not speak out, where can we find hope or expect joy?
At the height of apartheid, when South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu was facing numerous death threats, he told the Eloff Commission: "There is nothing the government can do to me that will stop me from being involved in what I believe God wants me to do ... When I see injustice, I cannot keep quiet, for, as [the prophet] Jeremiah says, when I try to keep quiet, God's Word burns like a fire in my breast. But what is it that they can ultimately do? The most awful thing that they can do is to kill me, and death is not the worst thing that could happen to a Christian".
Death is not the worst thing that could happen to a Christian who speaks out on behalf of the victimised, the oppressed and the violated. The abandonment of principles, and betraying those who are voiceless and who sorely need someone to be their voice, is a spiritual death that has consequences for generations that follow.
But Christ's abandonment on the Cross is Good News when the story is read with the understanding of God's total identification with all of humanity. And when it is read, it is with the benefit of the hindsight provided in the Easter story. Fear cannot be allowed to rule the world. Joy can always bring hope, even in the most desperate situations.