What is so good about Good Friday?
At the bank there was a notice: closed for Good Friday. Please God, I would like to take that day off as well, and change the direction from passion and death to a ‘being anywhere else day’. What is so good about Good Friday? it is the darkest day of the Christian year. Jesus dies, crucified.
Throughout the Lenten season the invitation to worship has resonated:
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies,
It remains that and nothing more;
But if it dies it bears a rich harvest. John 12:24
Holy Week, with the turning of the cries of Hosanna to Crucify, is upon us.
The only way to arrive at the Easter Sunday shout of Alleluia is to follow Jesus through these dark days of betrayal, anguish, torture, tears and deep dispair. I am forced to face my own death, ponder the meaning of life and to question the darkness of the cry: Whay have you forsaken me?
Read the story in the Gospels, ponder the characters in the Passion. Where are you in the Passion story?
See Matthew 26-27: 66, Mark 14-15, Luke 22-23, John 18-19.
Follow Jesus in his last days.
Experience the depth of emotions, absence and death.
A traditonal hymn and meditation for Good Friday is this one written by Paul Gerhardt in 1656 (Voices United 145, french words by Henri Capieu, 1974, Nos Voix Unies).
O Sacred head sore wounded,
with grief and shame weighed down;
now scornfully surrounded
with thorns, thine only crown:
how art thou pale with anguish,
with sore abuse and scorn;
how does that visage languish,
which once was bright as morn!
De l'humaine misère
tu t'es fait serviteur;
de chacun de tes frères,
tu portes la douleur.
Seigneur, de nos souffrances
et de nos lendemains,
garde notre espérance
en tes vivantes mains.
May the prayer of the brigand dying at Jesus’ side be ours:
Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. (Luke 22: 42)
- Rev. David
The office will be closed, but as is our tradition, we will have a Good Friday service at the Mission at 11AM on March 30th. Stay afterwards for a simple community lunch. 631 Melrose. All are welcome.