Last year I rhetorically asked what’s so good about Good Friday.
In America, we’ve ruined just about every holiday on the calendar with mattress sales and other commercial enticements.
The word “holiday” is derived from the expression holy day, which means the word holiday used to have religious connotations. By that assessment, a federal holiday, in the most literal sense, would either be a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution or an oxymoron, like random order and jumbo shrimp.
The government, supported by the courts, has chosen a path around this dilemma. By bleeding federal holidays of just about any meaningful content, outside of giving government workers a paid day off and insisting that banks remain closed for the day, the government can claim to recognize a holiday without violating an enumerated right in the Constitution.
Good Friday, however, is different. Unlike Christmas and non-federal holidays like St. Patrick’s Day — where much, if not all, the original meaning of the day has been drained away — Good Friday has a built-in resistance to both crass commercialism and federal and state recognition.
No one is likely to step up to the bar and buy a round for the house to celebrate Good Friday. There are, as yet, no “fa-la-la-la-la” songs for Good Friday. Easter, Christianity’s most sacred day, has not been immune to commercial banalities.
For many Americans, the sacred observance of Easter has been replaced with saccharine songs about rabbits, chocolate and colored eggs. But Good Friday remains oddly resistant to such debasement.
Why is Good Friday immune from commercial exploitation and sugary fantasies like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny? Why does the expression “Happy Good Friday” seem so uncomfortably improper?
Some may say that the reason Good Friday is immune from the fate of most other holidays is because it’s so serious. But Memorial Day is also serious and yet we have Memorial Day sales, beery picnics, the Indianapolis 500 and the seemingly endless running of old war movies on the movie channels.
So what’s the difference?
Memorial Day is a federal holiday and no matter how much the government may try, it cannot compel anyone to act reverently about anything. If the government cannot compel respect for the flag on any given day, it certainly cannot compel reverence for a federal holiday.
Good Friday is not a federal holiday; banks are open and so are federal and state offices. To those who are non-believers in the Christian faith, Good Friday is just another Friday.
So far, there has not been any serious attempt to invent a happy cartoon character to represent the day, which could possibly open the gates for commercial exploitation. The day’s significance is about the slow, lingering death of a young man in first century Palestine. Firing up the barbecue and swilling beer with friends to commemorate a grisly state execution seems too crass even by today’s secularized standards.
Crucifixion, which sadly is making a comeback thanks to some of the fanatics in the Middle East, hardly seems like a good topic for an American-style over-the-top celebration.
So Good Friday remains largely immune from the secular impulse that drained other holidays of much of their meaning, which is one good thing about Good Friday.
Happy Easter.
