Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1915-04-02
GOOD FRIDAY.

"Friday has always been my fortunate day,
said Louis NIL, when dying con Friday
have undertaken assaults and won battles,
should like to die on Friday"
Whether the French monarch attached any
large Importance to the sixth day of the week
as that whereon our Lord finished his earthly
life is not known, but on that day the Christ
achieved the most glorious triumph recorded
{ in history-through death he vanquished death
That day fraught with such Unreasonable
consequences should have been kept as a sacred
memorial from the earliest Christian centuries
and called "Good Friday" in recognition of
the eternal benefits derived from the sacrifice
of Christ, is altogether fitting. The comment
Grafton was sometimes known as the Passover
of the Crucifxion, and the day was observed
as strict fast. Only plaintive music was sung.
no bells rung, the lights were extinguished.
In the fourth century, Friday became re-
ligious day, and has remained such to this hour
for large part of Chfistendom. There is
much appearance Of propriety in this custom;
for Sunday no more surely commentaries the
resurrection of Jesus than Friday His cruci-
Hxion. TO those who participated in it and
those who witnessed it. the crucifixion was de-
i
see that through death in this manner Christ
would overthrow His enemies and bestow a
free and full redemption upon all who would
accept His infinite bounty. @.t.:, ~
When our emancipation died in 1868, our peo-
pie still had left their congress, the constitu-
ton and their supreme court. When over the
trembling wires the awful news was flung from
sea to sea, Mr.. Garfield said: Lincoln is dead
but the government Il ashington lives. .
When Moses lay down the mantle of author
ity, the word of the Lord game to Joshua say
ing, Moses my servant e dead, now therefore
arisen yksS-ss s. . ~. 3.
But when Jesus said & It is finished, z il
seemed TO the dis pies that there was none to
succeed Him. Their sun ind fallen out of the
sky, all was darkness, no, light but a torch, the
grave of their fallen hero must ever be the
shrine Of their perpetual grief
Much attention has been called to the suffer
ing Of Jesus on Good Friday, but we must not
lose sight of the fact that it is through His
Nessiahslip and not His suffering that Jesus
('aims the right of Savious and Lord over the
'empora and eternal destinies of mankind.
Yet no review of the work of Good Friday
would be complete without reference to His
suffering
It is ashort cycle of intensest suffering which
this day presents to our thought, and it cannot
be reviewed without pain to the devout believer
ID Jesus Christ, who will remember that the
sorrows of this dreadful space Of time were
but the highly dramatic epitome of sacrifices
which began with our Lords assumption of
human nature to accomplish man 3 redemption
from sin. Into the mystery of that suffering
We cannot look with the expectation of making
It's meaning clear to our reason. 1t must suf-
Zee us to know that it became Him from whom
are ali things, and by whom are all things in
the bringing many sons to glory to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through suf-
fefing, for in no other way could He have
been adapted to the vast mission of winning
the world to God
Salvation through suffering is the central
truth Of human history. No philosophy can
obscureit, and no science can explain it away.
Theodore Cuyler said: II am sick of all this
advanced thought in religion When thought
advances beyond the cross of Calvary, it goes
over precipice = The story of the cross IL
lumines the mind, glorifes the heart, floods the
soul with divine light, and carries civilization
on toward God.
~ A X