Good Friday
Transcripts are computer-generated and may not be 100% accurate.
Cody: Welcome to The Table on this Good Friday. This evening we share in a service called tenebrae, which is a word that means shadows. And it's a form of worship that stretches back to the 12th century and is often held on either Holy Thursday or Good Friday. It's a service that draws our focus to the passion of Christ, those last hours of his life marked by the anguish and suffering of Jesus and his arrest, trial, and state execution. Tenebrae invites us further into the shadows of Jesus's suffering with seven readings that move us through his final hours with candles being progressively extinguished throughout, leaving us in the end sitting in the darkness of desolation, a darkness which will be kept through Holy Saturday. Between each reading tonight you'll be invited to either sit for a few minutes of very intentional silence, and it may be a silence that stretches to an uncomfortable length. Between other readings you'll be invited to sing together, and at the end of the service tonight we'll invite you to sit for a few minutes in the shadows and then to depart in silence.
Prayer: A Prayer for Good Friday by Cole Arthur Riley
Debbie: God of the long night,
Thank you for being a God not just of solidarity but of deep and raw emotion.
A God who did not endure violence in silence but who spoke and cried as your body was broken on the cross. Help us to understand that our memory of you becomes more whole when we remember you alongside the injustices with which you suffered in solidarity: the hunger, the abuse, the loneliness of the world.
Today let us grieve the path of the cross—illness, violence, alienation, the degradation of land, and all pain unspoken. Let us weep and rest. Reveal yourself to us, remind us of a God who knows the weight of oppression, and help us believe that truly you are with us. That your cause is our cause—no less than justice and liberation in life and death. Amen.
J: A reading from Isaiah chapter 53: 8-9:
By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Though he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Cody: A reading from the gospel of Matthew:
After mocking him they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. As they went out they came upon a man from siren named Simon. They compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Galgatha which means place of a skull. They offered him wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he tasted it he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him they divided his clothes among themselves by casting lots. Then they sat down there and kept watch over him. Over his head they put the charge against him which read, “This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.”
Then two bandits were crucified with him one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by derided him shaking their heads and saying you who would destroy the temple and build it in three days save yourself. If you are the son of God come down from the cross. In the same way the chief priests also along with the scribes and elders were mocking him saying he saved others he cannot save himself. He is the king of Israel let him come down from the cross now and we will believe in him. He trusts in God let God deliver him now if he wants to for he said I am God's son.
Christian: As we sing this next song and as you feel comfortable please come up and touch the cross as a tangible reminder of this evening.
Music: Were You There?
J: This is a reading of words from the Black Liberation Theologian James Cone, may he rest in peace.
Until we can see the cross and the lynching tree together. Until we can identify Christ with a re-crucified Black body hanging from a lynching tree. There can be no genuine understanding of a Christian identity in America and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy. The cross can heal and hurt. It can be empowering and liberating but also enslaving and oppressive. I believe that the cross placed alongside the lynching tree can help us to see Jesus in America in a new light and thereby empower people who claim to follow him to take a stand against white supremacy and against every kind of injustice.
Prayer: “Mourning Prayer” from Liturgies from Below
Maggie: Unto you God, we bring our crippling pain for the violence inflicted on our brothers and sisters in their journey to a better present. Unto you God, we bring our contained anger for the indifference of western countries, for the ongoing violations of human rights, and the drafting of unjust laws. Unto you God, we bring our private indignation for the racism that poisons civil existence and interpersonal relationships. You who, in Jesus, have proclaimed blessed those who mourn free us from a conniving silence and a dumb resignation, transform our pain, our anger, and our indignation into a lamentation so loud that it cannot go unheard. As the widow praised by Jesus, may our mourning for justice be unrestrainable, that we may wear out or win over our enemies.
Music: Will We Ever Rise? by The Brilliance
Cody: A reading from the Gospel of Matthew:
From noon on darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani," that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, "This man is calling up for Elijah." At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come and save him."
Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now, when the centurion and those with him who were keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, "Truly, this man was God's son."
Debbie: Mary Speaks by Madeline L’Engle
The images in my head, O you who bear the pain of the whole earth, I bore you.
O you whose tears give human tears their worth, I laughed with you.
You who, when your hem is touched, give power, I nourished you.
Who turn the day to night in this dark hour, light comes from you.
O you who hold the world in your embrace, I carried you.
O you who laughed and ate and walked the shore, I played with you.
And I, who with all others died for, now I hold you.
May I be faithful to this final test in this last time I hold my child, my son, his body close and folded to my breast, the holder held, the bearer bare, mourning to joy, darkness to mourn. Open my arms, your work is done."
Music: Behold, I Make All Things New
Cody: From Matthew's Gospel: When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus, then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So, Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away.