God's Friday Service
March 21, 2008
6:00 PM
WELCOME “The Only Road to Easter”
Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief, because I still do not want to die. I believe Jesus has the power to raise the dead, only I do not want him practicing on me. I want a God who will cut my losses and cushion my failures, a God who will grant me a life free from pain. I want a God who will rescue me from death, who will delete it from the human experience and find another way to operate.
What I, what all of us, have instead is a God who resurrects us from the dead, putting an end to it by working THROUGH it instead of AROUND it—creating life in the midst of grief, creating love in the midst of loss, creating faith in the midst of despair—resurrecting us from our big and little deaths, showing us by his own example that the only road to Easter morning runs smack through Good Friday.
HYMN "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded" Hymn #202
LITANY OF THE PASSION Hymnal #201
JOURNEY TO THE CROSS
“Into Your hands I commit my Spirit”
PRAYER
HYMN "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross Hymn #195
(Come to the real end of this service on Easter Sunday)
Easter Began on Good Friday
I was visiting a friend in a nursing home on Good Friday. Suddenly, I became aware of a Good Friday church service being broadcast on television. Heavy music filled the building and fell like a weight upon the bowed heads of motionless residents, seeming to make their challenges even greater. I realized with sudden dismay that they could not escape the oppressive drone. Most could not comprehend the meaning of the words, but all were responding in their deep feeling nature to the grief and hurt of it all. For a moment, I asked myself, "Where is the light?" And then, above it all, a canary began to sing. Its notes, full of joy, penetrated the gloom, and the light seemed to come.
The whole atmosphere changed. One could see the people begin to stir and respond, to what, they knew not, but it was good.
Later I pondered the morning's experience, I thought of the heavy gloom that so characterizes this day for millions of Christians. I wondered if Jesus would have approved. How could I reconcile this attitude with His teachings? Was not the Resurrection experience that followed the time of apparent darkness His true message to humankind? These and like thoughts kept flowing through my mind. And then it happened! The words came as clearly as if they had been spoken aloud: "Easter began on Good Friday!”
“Easter began on Good Friday!" Gently but powerfully the words repeated until I was still. "Easter began on Good Friday!" I gasped as the realization came. Of course, how could it be otherwise? The moment Jesus uttered the words: "It is finished," (John 19:30) the Resurrection process began. Though Easter is celebrated three days later with the Resurrection "appearances", that joyous and triumphant event began in what has been termed for centuries the "world's darkest hour." Never again will this day hold a heaviness for me. Instead, it holds the beginning of the most meaningful event in human history—the Resurrection, the demonstration of eternal life!
The Fear and Feeding of Sheep
Ann Weems Kneeling in
We have nothing against
in fact, it’s the place to be
on a sunny Easter morning.
It’s
and yet, we’ve been to church enough
to know that the way to
leads through Good Friday.
Keeping covenant
means keeping covenant under the cross
as well as at the empty tomb.
What we’d like to do, of course,
is to wave palms and shout Hosannas
and then rest up for the Hallelujah Chorus.
We dismiss others as religious fanatics,
who wallow in the woe of Holy Week!
O Lamb of God, Lamb of God, Lamb of God,
feed us!