Author Elmore Leonard once quipped, “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.”

Good Friday is one of those parts in the Christian story. Who wouldn’t want to skip over betrayal, denial, abandonment, and brutality? But you don’t get to joy without them. Steve Martin’s parody of Happy Feet as a prelude to real joy on Easter. You don’t get to Easter with happy feet, and the risen Christ is the one whose feet were sore and pierced.

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In a sermon preached on Good Friday, 1553, the Rev. John Bradford asked his hearers to draw close to the cross, inviting them to look upon the death of Christ as the very presence of God, the part people want to skip.

As the very pledge of God’s love toward thee,
whosoever thou art, how deep soever thou hast sinned,
See, God’s hands are nailed, they cannot strike thee;
his feet also, he cannot run from thee.
His arms are wide open to embrace thee.

Happy feet are no remedy for sore feet. There is no Easter without Holy Thursday and Good Friday.