Bulletin – Friday, April 15, 2022 – Good Friday

Friday, April 15, 2022
Good Friday

Approach

Gathering

Today we gather to remember, so let us remember. Let us remember how the sky went dark. Let us remember how his mother was right there. Let us remember how the people standing around mocked him. Let us remember how all of his friends fled. Let us remember how in the midst of all of that, Jesus still chose love. Let us remember and let us worship our Holy God. Amen.

Anthem – “We Remember”

Confession

Good Friday, belongs to confession. For on this day we hold up to the light everything that went wrong 2,000 years ago; and as we do, we are reminded of everything that is going wrong in the present day.

So we breathe deeply. We bow our heads. We speak the truth out loud about who we long to be, and we trust that God is already reaching out as we speak. Knowing that, we pray…God of unfathomable mercy, if we were there, we’d like to think that we would have defended you.

We’d like to think that we would have stopped the guards and silenced the mockery, protected your body and defended your name. However, if we are honest with ourselves, if our recent past is any indication, we probably would have been at the edge of the crowd—silent and afraid. How often are we silent and afraid? How often do we wait for the stones to cry out for us? Forgive us. Please forgive us. Amen.

Words of Forgiveness

Hymn – “Beneath the Cross of Jesus”

Beneath the cross of Jesus, I fain would take my stand.
The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land,
A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noon-tide heat and the burden of the day.

Upon the cross of Jesus my eyes at times can see
The very dying form of one who suffered there for me;
And from my smitten heart, with tears, two wonders I confess,
The wonder of his glorious love, and my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, your shadow for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of his face,
Content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss,
My sinful self my only shame, my glory all, the cross.

Scripture

God who asked for a drink, God who was killed by the state, God who offered love and grace even from the cross—we are at a loss for words. What do we do with this day? The air is heavy. Our hearts are heavy. The suffering of this world feels particularly close, spilling out all over us. And yet, even in this space, we know you are moving. Even in this space, we know that this is not the end. Give us the heart to hear this story and the courage to let it change us.

The first candle is extinguished

Scripture Reading:           John 19:1-30

¹ Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. ² And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. ³ They kept coming up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and striking him on the face. ⁴ Pilate went out again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.” ⁵ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!” ⁶ When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him.” ⁷ The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.”

The second candle is extinguished

He claimed to be the “Son of God!” The Son of God, what a claim to make and yet if we were to really consider him and who he was we might come to see that he embodied all of the good things in this world. He was gentle and kind. He cared for those in our world who were cast aside, the lepers, the blind, the crippled, those whom society deemed as unclean. He walked with those who grieved. He offered forgiveness when others only brought judgement. He loved so many and yet he was rejected in favour of anger, hatred, and division. Why? What within us, even today, makes so many turn away from all of these beautiful gifts in favour of anger and division? Do we see ourselves in this crowd that is shouting “CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM!” Who have we shouted down, shouted over, sacrificed, so that we don’t have to hear the truth of the words that they spoke, because they challenged our status quo? Who speaks words of love, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness that we don’t want to hear? He claimed to be the “Son of God” and that was enough!

⁸ Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever. ⁹ He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. ¹⁰ Pilate therefore said to him, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” ¹¹ Jesus answered him, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” ¹² From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor. Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.”

The third candle is extinguished

¹³ When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge’s bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. ¹⁴ Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, “Here is your King!” ¹⁵ They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but the emperor.” ¹⁶ Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

The fourth candle is extinguished

He set himself against the emperor. Truly he set himself against the emperor. Who could ever think that they could stand against the emperor? Where did he think that it would get him coming and speaking about mercy and compassion? He challenged the empire and all that it stood for and for that he was sacrificed. What within us, even today, embeds us so deeply in empire, empire that is based on more, more, more, so that we don’t dare stand against it? Do we crave the perceived power of empire? Does it give us more prestige in our lives? Do we see ourselves when we look at the empires of our world? When this one man came offering something completely different they turned on him and he became the enemy. One man against a whole empire and he was too dangerous so they had to get rid of him. He set himself against the emperor.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

So they took Jesus; ¹⁷ and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. ¹⁸ There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. ¹⁹ Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” ²⁰ Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. ²¹ Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” ²² Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” ²³ When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. ²⁴ So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill what the scripture says, “They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.” ²⁵ And that is what the soldiers did.

The fifth candle is extinguished

The “King of the Jews,” or so it was said, this is how he thought of himself. Yet he was not a king like any other king that we had seen. He was a different and that difference made him trouble. I don’t think that they knew what to do about him and what he was saying and doing, so they answered his love with violence, they answered his peace by putting him to death, they answered his giving of himself by taking all that he had for themselves. What within us, even today, makes us uneasy when one comes to us who is so different than ourselves? What makes us view those who are different as ‘others,’ as dangerous, as something that must be feared?  Why does a new way scare us so much? Why does a new way make us hold so tightly to the old way? Do we see ourselves in those who cling tightly to the past, refusing to look to a new future? We are creatures of habit, but this was not just habit, this was a violent response in the face of peace and love. But he did think of himself as the “King of the Jews!”

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” ²⁷ Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

The sixth candle is extinguished

Woman here is your son! Here is your son, words that echo today, words spoken from up on the cross. These were words that were spoken with love and affection in the midst of pain and suffering. Even in these final moments here was a man who only thought of those around him. What within us, even today, continues to bring us to places where we continue to separate the world into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Do we see ourselves in the midst of those who would divide and marginalize, those who would exclude those who might be seen as different? In the face of these words of inclusion we continue to speak words of exclusion, they don’t belong, they are different, they don’t follow our ways. We see here the life of one man who spoke, to the very end, to the belonging of all persons in the family of God. Those words resonate with us this day, “Woman here is your son!”

²⁸ After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” ²⁹ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. ³⁰ When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

The Christ Candle is extinguished

“It is finished.” Those were the last words. But it wasn’t finished, it isn’t finished! We continue to live in empire and God continues to call us out the status quo to something new. What is within us, even now, that we can’t hear, or don’t want to hear God calling us to that new thing? Do we see ourselves in those who might have been there that day, and after those 3 words were spoken, went back to their lives? Today we have been faced with the anger and violence of empire as a response to love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness of God. Why are we so afraid of real change? Why do we hold so tightly to the way things have always been? How often have we thought, or said, that this is just the way it is? Today we can see ourselves in; the crowds that yelled, in the power that refused to yield, in the empire that controlled, and that is what we are called to do, to see where we have been complacent, where we have been complicit, in the continued power of empire, privilege, marginalization, and exclusion in our world. Today we must look, to see, so that we might be changed. We grieve for what has happened. We lament what we have not done. Today is a day for sadness and reflection. It is finished, but is has only, truly, just begun.

Prayer

Loving God of grace and mercy, we believe that the crucifixion shows us the worst in humanity—violence inflicted on the innocent, shame poured out in excess, mockery for the sake of mockery, and abandonment of those we love.

We believe that Jesus shows us the best in humanity—grace where grace is underserved, humility in the face of power, justice in the face of oppression, love that overcomes.

So today, God, as one voice, we choose the latter. We choose love. We choose grace. We choose one another. We choose to remember. Let it be so. Amen.

Anthem – “Where Joy and Sorrow Meet”

Benediction

Jesus, we wait here by your tomb carrying our grief; the grief of the betrayer, the grief of the denier, the grief of the crucifiers. We carry the grief of the lost, the heartbroken, the bereft. Upon you was laid the grief of us all. It is finished. God of endings, God of darkness, God of the tomb, God of dark days and loss, be with us now as we wait with Jesus.