This Is Me: Good Friday Service

Good Friday

**Please note this is based on the format previously used at St Michael's Anglican Parish in Victoria Beach, MB and the hymns are from the Book of Common Praise (BCP). Other hymns and prayers have been sourced to give appropriate credit.

**NRSV translation used for the readings, unless otherwise stated.

**This is for personal use at home as the church is unable to gather in our houses of worship but together we can worship in our own homes.

Opening Hymn – Were You There (BCP #192)

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The echoes of cheering die away and the partying palm branches shrivel on the side of the road. The glimpses of light on the way ahead flicker into darkness. All that lies within the shadows and the emptiness waits to be entered, in its pain, its oppressions, and its deathliness.

(Silence)

But one thing is never in doubt: That Christ goes on in faithfulness.

Let us pray:

God of everlasting covenants, we come to you this day in sorrow.

As we contemplate the death of Jesus so long ago on the cross,

Help us to come to terms with the things we have done, that continue to crucify Him in our world.

Give us the strength and courage to open ourselves honestly to your judgment, and as we confess all that we have done, and all we have failed to do, may we receive the fullness of your Grace.

In the name of Jesus, crucified and risen, we pray. Amen.

A reading from the book of Isaiah 52:13-53:12

See, my servant shall prosper;

he shall be exalted and lifted up,

and shall be very high.

Just as there were many who were astonished at him

—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance,

and his form beyond that of mortals—

so he shall startle many nations;

kings shall shut their mouths because of him;

for that which had not been told them they shall see,

and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate.

Who has believed what we have heard?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by others;

a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;

and as one from whom others hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him of no account.

Surely he has borne our infirmities

and carried our diseases;

yet we accounted him stricken,

struck down by God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions,

crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the punishment that made us whole,

and by his bruises we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have all turned to our own way,

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he did not open his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

By a perversion of justice he was taken away.

Who could have imagined his future?

For he was cut off from the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people.

They made his grave with the wicked

and his tomb with the rich,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.

When you make his life an offering for sin,

he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;

through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.

Out of his anguish he shall see light;

he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.

The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;

because he poured out himself to death,

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and made intercession for the transgressors.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Psalm 22

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;

and by night, but find no rest.

Yet you are holy,

enthroned on the praises of Israel.

In you our ancestors trusted;

they trusted, and you delivered them.

To you they cried, and were saved;

in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

But I am a worm, and not human;

scorned by others, and despised by the people.

All who see me mock at me;

they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;

“Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—

let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”

Yet it was you who took me from the womb;

you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.

On you I was cast from my birth,

and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

Do not be far from me,

for trouble is near

and there is no one to help.

Many bulls encircle me,

strong bulls of Bashan surround me;

they open wide their mouths at me,

like a ravening and roaring lion.

I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint;

my heart is like wax;

it is melted within my breast;

my mouth is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue sticks to my jaws;

you lay me in the dust of death.

For dogs are all around me;

a company of evildoers encircles me.

My hands and feet have shriveled;

I can count all my bones.

They stare and gloat over me;

they divide my clothes among themselves,

and for my clothing they cast lots.

But you, O Lord, do not be far away!

O my help, come quickly to my aid!

Deliver my soul from the sword,

my life from the power of the dog!

Save me from the mouth of the lion!

From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me.

I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters;

in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:

You who fear the Lord, praise him!

All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;

stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!

For he did not despise or abhor

the affliction of the afflicted;

he did not hide his face from me,

but heard when I cried to him.

From you comes my praise in the great congregation;

my vows I will pay before those who fear him.

The poor shall eat and be satisfied;

those who seek him shall praise the Lord.

May your hearts live forever!

All the ends of the earth shall remember

and turn to the Lord;

and all the families of the nations

shall worship before him.

For dominion belongs to the Lord,

and he rules over the nations.

To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;

before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,

and I shall live for him.

Posterity will serve him;

future generations will be told about the Lord,

and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,

saying that he has done it.

A reading from the letter to the Hebrews 10:16-25

“This is the covenant that I will make with them

after those days, says the Lord:

I will put my laws in their hearts,

and I will write them on their minds,”

he also adds,

“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Gradual Hymn - Go to Dark Gethsemane (BCP #190)

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The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John 18:1-19:42

Gone is the Light – Lyrics and music by Gordon Johnson, performed by Steve Bell

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Prayers of the People

Let us gently cover the wounds that lie in this Holy life, knowing that, as we do, we are also receiving the gracious love of Jesus the Christ.

(Silence)

We bring our pain, our grieving, and our unforgiven failures. We bring the injustices and rejections of the world. We bring violence of the world. We bring the struggling life of our planet. Like the friends of Jesus in his day, we will gently cherish the Christ. We will now lay down the difficulties of life. We bring these burdens to the Body of Christ, for healing, comfort, forgiveness, and new life in the future. We will place them into the tomb of love and care.

Lord God, we meet you beneath your cross today. We meet friends, strangers, and mourners – grieving for the loss of love in this world. We meet because we want to understand the awful things that have happened. We meet because we want to be alongside you on the cross.

And in our meeting we keep silence. We keep silence at a time when words fail us. We keep silence as you kept silent on the cross. And so we keep silence with those crucified today, and those who live in darkness, in despair, in pain.

People who seem different or strange.

(Silence)

We keep silence with those treated as scapegoats: lone parents, people of different orientations, loners.

(Silence)

We keep silence with those who are robbed of a sense of belonging in our society: women beaten up by money lenders, mothers and fathers whose sons have been murdered.

(Silence)

We keep silence with those who mourn a loved one.

(Silence)

We keep silence with those rebuilding their lives in places of conflict.

Their names are not in the headlines but the slaughter goes on.

(Silence)

We keep silence with those known to us today who live in darkness.

Who find it hard to see beyond desolation and despair.

(Silence)

In the pain, misfortune, oppression, and death of the people, God is silent.

God is silent on the cross, in the crucified, and in this silence is God’s word, God’s cry.

In solidarity, God speaks the language of Love.

Amen.

An ancient Good Friday tradition calls for the reading of a series of “reproaches” in which we hear the voice of God challenging humankind for acts of betrayal.

The reproaches included here reflect back on the various stories of covenant that have been read this Lenten season. After each reproach we will say: