Christ is risen! Truly he is risen!
Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.” (Acts 17:2-3)
St Paul says that in accordance with the Scriptures“ the Christ had to suffer” though he doesn’t specify which Old Testament prophecies he has in mind. In later centuries, Christian piety often focused on Christ’s sufferings in order to strike an emotional chord in believers. Holy Friday services became a passion play or Greek drama intended to invoke an emotional response from the worshippers contemplating the human suffering of Christ and also His mother. The services became increasingly like a dirgeful funeral with a heavy emphasis on Christ’s suffering and how we are all terrible sinners who should weep for their sins as well as at the funeral of Christ.
However, in the early Church the focus of the Holy Week services was to celebrate our salvation given to us through the life, death and resurrection of Christ. God does everything in His power to unite us to Himself including suffer for our sakes. So, in the early Church they were commemorating our salvation, and the services were meant to evoke joy in us as we celebrate all that God has done for us and our salvation and loving awe for a God willing to suffer so much just for us. The cross was a sign of God’s unlimited and unconditional love for us. It was a sign of God’s victory and a sign of our joy. ‘Holy Week’ 
originally proclaimed God’s forgiving our sins rather than judging a few notorious sinners (as it has become in Orthodox hymns focusing on the sins of Judas, the sinful woman and the Jews). The current way the Orthodox do Holy Friday is by Orthodox standards a recent liturgical development. [I’ve read that there is no mention of Holy Friday’s funeral procession with the winding sheet before the 19th century in any rubrics book. The way the services are currently being done is a recent liturgical change that aims at our emotional sentimentality – we are to weep for our sins and be angry at those who caused the crucifixion tragedy [It blames the Jews, but all of us who sin are the real cause of the death of Christ, we can only blame ourselves! Orthodoxy has changed the tone of the Holy Week services from a joyful commemoration of God’s total love for us to a penitential focus on our sins but especially on the sins of the unrepentant Jews and Judas.].
St John Chrysostom says when the New Testament talks about God’s love for us it focuses on the cross of Christ, not on his miracles and signs. We’ve lost that focus as we turned Holy week into a passion play. Here are Chrysostom’s words – note what he thinks the emphasis of Holy Friday is and how we should feel on this day:
“Today our Lord Jesus Christ is on the cross, and we celebrate the festival, so that you may learn that the cross is a festival and a spiritual celebration. For previously the cross was a name of condemnation, but now it has become a thing of honor; previously a sign of sentencing, but now the basis of salvation. For it has become for us the cause of countless goods. It recovered us from deception. It illumined those seated in darkness. It reconciled to God us who were at war. It claimed as friends us who were estranged. It made us to be near who were far off. It has become the undoing of hostility, the security of peace, the treasure of countless goods for us. Because of it we no longer wander in the deserts, for we have recognized the true way. We no longer live outside the kingdom, for we have found the door. We do not fear the flaming darts of the devil, for we have seen the fount. Because of it we are no longer in widowhood, for we have taken a bridegroom. We have not feared the wolf, for we have the good shepherd. For, I am, He says, the good shepherd (Jn 10.11, 14). Because of it we do not tremble at the tyrant, for we have recourse to the king. 
And for this reason we celebrate the festival, fulfilling the remembrance of the cross. Thus even Paul commanded us to celebrate the festival because of the cross: Let us celebrate the festival, he says, not with the ancient yeast, but with the unleavened loaves of sincerity and truth (1 Cor 5.8). Then, adding the cause, he goes on: Because our Passover was sacrificed for us: Christ (1 Cor 5.7). Do you see how because of the cross he commands [us] to celebrate the festival? For on the cross Christ was sacrificed… Now wherever [there is] sacrifice, in that place [there is] the removal of sins, in that place the master’s reconciliation, in that place festival and joy. Our Passover was sacrificed for us: Christ. (Behold the Thief with the Eyes of Faith, Kindle Location 402-418)
“Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus, the only Sinless One. We venerate Your cross, O Christ, and we praise and glorify Your holy Resurrection; for You are our God, and we know no other than You; we call on Your name. Come all you faithful, let us venerate Christ’s holy resurrection, for behold, through the cross joy has come into all the world. Let us, ever blessing the Lord, praise His Resurrection, for by enduring the cross for us, He has destroyed death by death.” (Paschal Matins Hymn)
See also my posts: The Baptismal Theme of the Bridegroom Services and Holy Week’s Historical Development.
Fraternized 