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Thursday, April 13, 2006

Good Friday

Voice 1: 'Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me'
Voice 2: There was real fear of the unknown, fear of what God wanted him to be.
Voice 1: 'Yet not my will but yours be done'
Voice 2: He accepted, placing his body into God's hands As he would soon place his spirit.
Voice 1: An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.
Voice 2: God met him - because he was willing God provided strength - but not a way out
Voice 1: And being in anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Voice 2: Right through his body he felt the fear, Right through his body he felt the pain, Right through his body he felt what was to come.
Voice 1: When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow.
Voice 2: Surrounded by the faithless, he was deserted.
Voice 1: 'Why are you sleeping?' he asked them. 'Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation
Voice 2: And it is hard to stand with those in pain
Voice 2: Because of our own fear.
Voice 2: We fail to stand firm,
Voice 2: We fail to take the cup,
Voice 2: And yet
Voice 2: We want to be willing.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, you were sweating, bleeding. You must have suffered more than anyone of us can imagine. You felt abandoned by one and all. No one shared with you these lonesome moments, not even those you had chosen to be your disciples. Not even those who witnessed your Glory on Mount Tabor. Those who where witnesses of your miracles and with whom you ate, drank and slept abandoned you. They were tired, Lord, and fell asleep!
We want to be willing. Please Lord help us understand more the meaning of staying with you, of sharing your life, of being your follower, of believing in your words and imitating your deeds.

Judas, Peter
because we are all
betrayers, taking silver and eating
body and blood and asking
(guilty) is it I and hearing
him say yes
it would be simple for us all
to rush out
and hang ourselves

but if we find grace
to cry and wait
after the voice of morning
has crowed in our ears
clearly enough
to break our hearts
he will be there
to ask us each again
do you love me?

Jesus' trials before the Sanhedrin and then Pilate had gone relatively quickly. False accusations were flying, along with some fists and spittle. But Jesus had held his own. He had remained calm, silent apart from a few carefully chosen words. The result was that, as he had known, he was to be killed, crucified on a Roman cross.

The Cross is laid on Jesus’ Back.

The burden he carried on his back was not so much the burden of the great rough wooden beam, but the sin of the world that he bore. Yours and my sin laid upon him. In the pain and weakness that you see as you look into his eyes, you begin to grasp the true reality of our sin to God and the price that had to be paid. For a moment it becomes too much and Jesus falls. He is pulled up and made to continue.

Prayer: My Jesus, the heavy burden of my sins is on you, and bears down on you beneath the cross. I loathe them, I detest them; I call on you to pardon them; may your grace aid me never more to commit them.

Huge nails are driven through his hands and feet to fix him to the cross. As the cross is lifted up, the weight of his life hangs on those nails. Every breath is a struggle as he pulls himself up. Jesus is lifted up, displayed, the defeat of death is evident for all to see. "If you are the Son of God come down from there". But the mission did not allow it, shame must be the only display. The foolishness of the cross is the wisdom of God. He will be 'lifted up' again. Before our future 'lifting up' we too must live a life of foolishness to the world, a life of service to God and others.

Prayer: Jesus you did not avoid the shame of the cross for our good. Help us also to embrace shame for the good of others. The shame of service, the shame of washing feet. Strip us Lord of the love of worldly glory.

Hanging as a criminal amongst criminals, beaten, a mocking crown on his head and a mocking title above, deserted by all including his Father, Jesus finally gives up his spirit to death with one final cry "It is finished". It is at the foot of this cross, on which hangs a dead messiah, that we see truly who Jesus was and is. We kneel in its shadow unable to comprehend the reality of what has taken place, upon this King was laid the sins of the world, this is the consequences of my sin. The shadow cast from this cross embraces, not just you and me, but a crowd of multitudes from every tribe and nation. We declare together in unbelief and in awe and wonder, "surely this man was the son of God".

Jesus your sacrifice overwhelms me. At the cross I see Love that did not shrink from offering his life for others. Surely you are the Son of God who came to take away the sins of the whole world.

Labels: easter