It’s Friday. A man from Cyrene, a port city of North Africa, is visiting his ethnic homeland during a religious festival. The busy streets of the holy city to which his pilgrimage has brought him suddenly and violently swell with pilgrims-turned-spectators. In the midst of the tossing stream of bodies and faces floats an orderly procession of stately guards. They lead an unsightly band of prisoners obviously marked for execution. A soldier from the procession plucks the visitor and forces him to help one of the condemned along. It’s Friday. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. A weeping widow stands on a hill midst a sea of people but all alone. She weeps like every parent who ever searched to understand the loss of a child who died too young and unjustly. But no grieving mother ever stood in her loneliest hour among such miserable comforters. She cries, but the surrounding company jeers. The widow mourns, but the multitude applauds. Even the sun hides behind clouds, and the ground seems to shudder at the spectacle of a figure that has only now become a corpse. A sword pierces her soul. It’s Friday. But Sunday’s coming.

It’s Friday. Night falls on a day that never seemed to dawn and never to end. An entire city goes to bed but doesn’t go to sleep. Eyes remain open and minds nervously turn over events that seemed so accidental and so intentional at the same time. Other days have seemed long, but none so long as this one. Time has seemed to stand still on other occasions. On this day, it seemed to lie down. Every day seems to run into this never ending day and every day to stretch from it. It’s Friday. But Sunday’s coming.

Sunday came. Friday’s man became Sunday’s King. Friday’s prisoner became Sunday’s Deliverer. Friday’s son became Sunday’s Lord. Friday’s darkness became Sunday’s dawn. It was Friday once. But Sunday came and Jesus arose!