Do Not Be Far From Me

In our desire to help people experience the depths of this event, we can over-dramatize the crucifixion. “Is that even possible?” you might think. It is laden with drama. Look again at the gospel stories of the event. There is a bare simplicity to telling this story. They don’t go overboard with adverbial content designed to cause us to recoil. Rather, it is simply presented, and the power is carried in the simplicity. Let the story speak for itself. Read, or tell, any one of the gospel accounts. Let the text in conjunction with the Holy Spirit carry the weight of this event. And we will find ourselves on our knees at the foot of the cross again.

Call to Worship

LEADER: He was despised and rejected by others, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

PEOPLE: But it was his punishment that made us whole, his bruises that healed us. And we give thanks.

LEADER: He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet, he did not open his mouth.

PEOPLE: But it was through him that God’s will was made to prosper. It was because of his anguish that we can see light – and we give thanks.

LEADER: He is our high priest, touched by our infirmities, suffering as we have suffered.

PEOPLE: He is our living example that God’s ways are not our ways. He is the stone that the builders rejected that became the head cornerstone. He is the last that became first. Through him we are challenged to live in a new way, to love in a new way, to lead in a new way – and for this, we give thanks.

Melinda Contreras-Byrd, “Good Friday,” in The Abingdon Women’s Preaching Annual, Series 2, Year C, Compiled and Edited by Leonora Tubbs Tisdale (Abingdon, 2000), 96-97.

Lord I Have Known (A Prayer for Good Friday)

(John 18:1-19:42)

Lord, I have known what it is like to be mistreated
To have shortsighted power brokers criminalize lack of conformity
To have the struggle for justice called meddling
To be maligned for loving enough to speak the truth.

Lord, I have known betrayal
The betrayal of love,
The betrayal of friends,
The backstabbing ways of the workplace.

Lord, I have known grief
The grief that comes from knowing
you did nothing to bring your troubles upon yourself
The sickened heart that threatens to stop beating – yet won’t
The cloud of portent that refuses to be blown away.

Lord, I have even known death at the hands of assassins
Been entombed in a living grave – with sobs and waves of pain
over wrongs that can never be righted
Frightened by my own decaying image in the mirror
Separated from those I love by ceaseless sorrow.

We have known mistreatment and betrayal, grief and death; but we have not known:
The balcony view that negates human opposition
Single-mindedness that copilots over all obstacles
The grace of unconditional love.
Without them your suffering would have been like ours.

Prayer: On this Good Friday, we pray to begin the journey from seasonal sentimentality to a realization of how your suffering, death and resurrection continue to speak peace to our troubled souls. Amen.

Safiyah Fosua, The Africana Worship Book for Year C (Discipleship Resources, 2008), 38.

Call to Confession

LEADER: Judas, slave of jealousy, where are you?

PEOPLE: I am here.

LEADER: Peter, slave of fear, where are you?

PEOPLE: I am here.

LEADER: Thomas, slave of doubt, where are you?

PEOPLE: I am here.

LEADER: Men and women of Jerusalem, enslaved to mob rule, where are you?

PEOPLE: I am here.

LEADER: Pilate, slave of expediency, where are you?

PEOPLE: I am here.

LEADER: The story of Christ’s passion and death mirrors for us much of our own weakness and sin. We all come here as men and women who have missed the mark and who are alienated from God and our neighbor near and far. Let us join together in the prayer of confession.

Richard N. Eick, in Flames of the Spirit, edited by Ruth C. Duck (Pilgrim Press, 1984), 37.

Prayer of Confession

Yes, dear God, it is true. We are not worthy of your love. We promise to be faithful, but we fall away; we forsake you; we flee from you; we betray you; we deny you; we watch from afar; we don’t tell anyone that your reign is at hand; we are afraid. Change us, we pray. Amen.

Mary Lois Stansbury, in Flames of the Spirit, edited by Ruth C. Duck (Pilgrim Press, 1984), 38.

Blessing for Good Friday

You will know
this blessing
by how it
does not stay still,
by the way it
refuses to rest
in one place.

You will recognize it
by how it takes
first one form,
then another:

now running down
the face of the mother
who watches the breaking
of the child
she had borne,

now in the stance
of the woman
who followed him here
and will not leave him
bereft.

Now it twists in anguish
on the mouth of the friend
whom he loved;

now it bares itself
in the wound,
the cry,
the finishing and
final breath.

This blessing
is not in any one
of these alone.

It is what
binds them
together.

It is what dwells
in the space
between them,
though it be torn
and gaping.

It is what abides
in the tear
the rending makes.

Written by Jan L. Richardson and posted on The Painted Prayerbook. http://paintedprayerbook.com. Reposted: https://re-worship.blogspot.com/2014/03/good-friday-blessing.html.