We usually employ the word "good" when we think of something pleasant, when we look forward to a joyous event or when we like the thing we are holding, tasting or smelling. We would doubtfully use the word to describe perhaps the darkest day in history.
But the Christian community has used the word to describe the day which is traditionally cited as the day Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world. It was the day in which He was beaten and mocked and "put to an open shame". It was the day in which He was nailed to the cross and in which our sins were "laid upon Him". It was the day in which the sun hid its face from Him. It was the day in which His loving Father in Heaven turned His back upon Him. It was the day in which He cried out in agony, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Why would God forsake His Son in such a trying hour? It was because He "was made sin for us". He Who knew no sin, Who did no sin, Who could not commit sin (because He was God), was counted and treated as the worst sinner ever to have lived. He bore in His own body the sins of the whole world, took the punishment deserved by every sinner and paid the utmost farthing of the sin debt of all humanity.
It was "good" Friday because all of the things He endured were endured for you, our reader. It was for you that He died, for your sins that He paid the penalty. His atoning work on that Friday was certainly good, and it was a good thing for you that He performed it. Without His atonement you have no hope of any relationship with a holy God. You are lost and without hope apart from that work on the cross.
But there is yet one thing lacking. Without that one thing His work is of no effect for you. That one thing is your personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as your own Savior. Acknowledge your sin, admit your inability to save yourself by ritual or good works, and, by faith, trust Christ alone as your personal Savior. "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name" (John 1:12).
Good Friday is the Friday before Christ's resurrection on Sunday. That was undoubtedly the most glorious day in history. It indicated God's acceptance of Christ's atoning work in full payment for sin. Both events are forever linked in God's redemptive plan and neither can be excluded in that plan. Certainly that Sunday was glorious for its meaning. Friday was good for its accomplishment for all of us sinners.