My Good Friday Remembrances

My dad died on April 2nd, 1999. He was 53. It’s way too young, but he suffered way too long with a bone cancer that should have taken him from us almost a decade earlier. The kind of cancer that people find out they have when an autopsy is done to find out why they died. But I do not think I about my dad’s death on April 2nd.

I think about it on Good Friday.

Look, I loved my dad, but he was not perfect. So I have no Messianic memories of my dad that place him on a pedestal with Jesus. It’s not that. It’s just that in 1999, Good Friday was on April 2nd. So now, decades later, Good Friday is a remembrance of the death of both my Savior and my dad. And honestly, it is easy for that mess you up leading into Easter.

My dad had been in the hospital for a few weeks. Cancer had eaten through the bottom third of his spine. I don’t know if the attack on that part of his nervous system lessened his pain, but I hope it did. It did render his legs useless. He was learning to function in a wheelchair while doctors were learning what more they could do to improve the quality of his life for the time he would be able to live it. Regular visits from my newborn daughter were a huge help. When I brought Audrey into the room, he would say, “Here comes my medicine.”  

That Good Friday, dad was put in ICU. An infection had set into his bloodstream, and he was losing strength. I visited him in ICU after I did some work at the radio station I worked at. He was weak and sunken. He was aware, but too weak to speak. I still remember his face as I left his room for a dinner engagement with some people in our church. In my mind, dad was going to pull through this like he had every other surgery or setback he’d dealt with the last decade. But that was the last time I’d see my dad’s eyes. Whether the reality or not, I still see eyes that yearned for me to stay and eyes that said he loved me and that he was proud of me. In retrospect, his unspoken last words to me. At dinner, my mom called and I rushed back to the hospital. But I had already seen my dad’s eyes for the last time. He was gone before I made it to the hospital.

In addition to funeral and burial plans, there were necessary plans made at the church he pastored. Who would take over his pastoral responsibilities? My mom was asked to assume those responsibilities, and delivered her first sermon as a senior pastor that Easter morning. As the youth pastor of that church, I handled the sunrise service. So two days after dad died, my mom and I were tasked with delivering messages of hope and comfort and peace and God’s love to a grieving congregation. It’s the same message as every Easter Sunday, but the sting of death was still biting us as we spoke that year.

Churches on Easter Sundays are filled with flowers and eggs, pretty dresses and smiles, “He is risen!” and “He is risen indeed!” And that Sunday in 1999, it was filled with the glaring hole left by my dad. (I did joke with my mom, though, that after one week with a woman pastor, our church was filled with flowers, and I didn’t know how I could handle that…)

So when Good Friday rolls around, in addition to traditional remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice, the death of my dad is mixed in there with “the seven last words from the Cross” and others words like “atonement,” “salvation,” and “propitiation.”

Many years ago, a popular Christian speaker coined a phrase. “It may feel like Friday night, but Sunday’s on the way.” In the midst of sadness and pain and despair and loss and unmet expectations is a hope for something more. A hope promised long before a death, a hope proven after a resurrection. 

What took place on that first Good Friday would mean absolutely nothing except for what took place on that first Easter Sunday. Had Jesus not conquered death, his crucifixion would have been just another Roman death by torture. Two thieves were beside Jesus, and we do not celebrate them 2000 years later. Just the one who beat death. And through Jesus beating death, we have a hope for life in Him. So “it may feel like Friday night, but Sunday’s on the way.”

Jesus gave His life on Good Friday. My dad had given his life to telling people, through word and deed, the story of Jesus and the difference He can make in life. My entire life was watching my mom and dad live out the hope of Easter ever single day. They truly gave their lives to Jesus’ message of good news. It’s John 3:16-17: “This is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.” What we remember on Good Friday is the crux of that message, with Jesus giving his life so we could have ours.  Ironically, just like Jesus did centuries earlier, my dad consciously or unconsciously uttered Jesus’ famous last words on the same day: “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.”

Remembering both my dad’s death and Jesus’ death on the same day is still kinda weird. I miss my dad. There are so many things that I wish he could have seen or been a part of. And many I am happy he never had to experience. Many I wish I didn’t even have to experience. But because of the hope of Easter, I can handle these Good Friday thoughts and remembrances with a “peace that passes understanding.” Dad died, but the story isn’t over. Why? Because Jesus died and the story wasn’t over. Easter came, and now we have a story that can have life even after we die.

That’s why we celebrate Easter. Because Friday’s that hurt can have Sunday’s that are celebrated.

How do you observe Good Friday and Easter? What remembrances can you build into your routine?