On the Friday before Easter, Christians mark a day long Good Friday observance. To answer the question "what is Good Friday," you must understand the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the figure central to the Christian religion as the son of God and Savior first for the Jewish people and then to the Gentiles. The events leading up to his death mark a holy time that is a week long. Good Friday is the holiest day in that week.

Because the date of Easter varies on the religious calendar so does the Good Friday date. The earliest it can occur is March 20 and the latest is April 23. Both Catholic and Orthodox Christians mark a fast for the date that is a day long. Good Friday observances in the modern Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, however, have dropped this provision. Some Baptist and nondenominational congregations do not observe Good Friday.

Beginning on Ash Wednesday and following an observance three days long, Good Friday marks the end of the specific portion of Holy Week known as Lent. In order to follow the example of Christ's suffering (and of the forty days during which he fasted in the desert and was tested by the devil), Lent is to be a period of self-sacrifice three days long. Good Friday itself is regarded as the day Jesus died on the cross.

For those not familiar with the story, the young rabbi Jesus Christ was seen by the Romans as a Judean partisan leader. Representing a specific religious sect in a conquered Jewish people, Jesus represented to many Jews the long prophesized savior or Messiah. To the Romans and to many in the established Jewish religious hierarchy, however, Jesus represented a dangerous threat to authority.

Betrayed by one of his own followers, Judas Iscariot, Jesus was arrested by the Romans, tried before Pontius Pilate, and sentenced to death by the accepted Roman method of crucifixion. Following his death he was placed in a donated tomb for which he is said to have arisen from the dead on the third day after his death. Then, in the phraseology of one of the professions of faith of the Christian religion, the Apostle's Creed, "he ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead."

The direct answer to "what is Good Friday" would be "the day Jesus Christ died on the cross." Like Easter, the day of Christ's resurrection, the Good Friday date is one of the major celebrations of the Christian calendar. Easter is celebrated on the Sunday following Good Friday and unlike the solemnity of Good Friday observances, is a time of rejoicing for the resurrection of the risen savior. (The other major date in the Christian calendar is December 25 or Christmas, which commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ.)

The importance of Good Friday, Easter, and Christmas are so central to the Christian faith that even those adherents who have strayed from regular church attendance will return to their congregations for the observance of these holiest of their holy days. In fact, the story behind Good Friday and Easter lies at the heart of the Christian faith and passionately attests to the courage Jesus Christ exhibited in facing down Roman authority in the name of the faith he represented. Even those who are unsure of the divinity of Christ cannot help but be moved by the story of his death.