I am for various reasons a more faithful attendee of Good Friday services than Easter ones. No resurrection without death. But it is worse than death. Death comes for all living things and is as natural as falling water. It is eternal death that I worry about. Eternal Spiritual Darkness. I mean that for me Good Friday is the day of triumph of evil, for ever. The boot stomping on a face, forever. God renounces his only Son. “Son, you have to do this for yourself. Otherwise no one will believe you went through everything a man will go through. You have to die, Son. Agony, bloody sweats, pain, humiliation, degradation, and a sneering mob. Only then will mankind pay attention to you, when you come back from the dead, and you have to die to do that. So have a really bad day, Son. It is the only path, and we have foreseen this day since time began. Now be a Man and die”.

Not a cheerful doctrine. But I believe it is a true one. In the meantime we live in the world where Sauron has the One Ring, and all is lost, at least until the Resurrection, when we can begin to hope again that his rule is not complete or final.