Good Friday Service 18 April 2025

April 18, 2025 colind

Off

Today’s service is led by the Revd Andy Braunston

Welcome and Introduction

Hello and welcome to worship on this, the saddest day of the Church’s year. We follow Jesus from the garden to the tomb, ponder things through the eyes of Peter, Pilate, and Mary and wonder how we might have reacted if we’d been there. Through song, reading, silence, reflection and prayer we join Jesus at the cross, marvel at the love which held him there and the evil that always fights against good, sometimes seeming to win, but always ultimately defeated. We start our service with a hymn by British Baptist hymn writer Martin Leckebusch with his hymn, Come Wounded Healer.

Hymn Come Wounded Healer
Martin Leckebusch © 1999, Kevin Mayhew Ltd OneLicence # A-734713. Performed by Ruth and Joy Everingham and used with their kind permission.

Come, wounded healer, Your sufferings reveal –
the scars You accepted, our anguish to heal.
Your wounds bring such comfort in body and soul
to all who bear torment and yearn to be whole.

Come, hated Lover, and gather us near,
Your welcome, Your teaching, Your challenge to hear:
where scorn and abuse cause rejection and pain,
Your loving acceptance makes hope live again!

Come, broken Victor, condemned to a cross –
how great are the treasures we gain from Your loss!
Your willing agreement to share in our strife
transforms our despair into fullness of life.

Opening Prayers

Holy God, holy and vulnerable One, have mercy on us.

We come to worship today, Eternal Majesty,
wondering at humanity’s wickedness,
at how injustice, torture, degradation, and death remain with us;
at how evil, banal and dreadful, continues to stalk the earth,
and at how we collude with it.

Holy God, holy and vulnerable One, have mercy on us.

We come to worship today, Lord Jesus, following You to the Cross,
watching You bear unimaginable pain,
sharing in the grief of Your mother and friends,
seeing you punished for truth-telling, hated for love-sharing,
killed for disturbing the powers of Your age,
and bringing judgement to unjust power everywhere.

Holy God, holy and vulnerable One, have mercy on us.

We come to worship today, Most Holy Spirit,
with all our interpretations of Jesus’ death,
mixed with our dis-ease at the pain, injustice, and suffering of it all.
We long for Easter but must endure today’s pain and tomorrow’s waiting.

Holy God, holy and vulnerable One, have mercy on us.

So, we come to worship, Eternal Trinity,
with our pain and our prayers, our patience and our protest,
our stumbling questions and partial answers,

and stand at the Cross, beholding mystery, love, and eternity.

Holy God, holy and vulnerable One, have mercy on us.

We hear again the account of Jesus’ passion in John’s Gospel.

Gospel Reading John 18:1-27

Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron valley where there was a garden into which he went with his disciples. Judas the traitor knew the place also, since Jesus had often met his disciples there, so Judas brought the cohort to this place together with guards sent by the chief priests and the Pharisees, all with lanterns and torches and weapons. Knowing everything that was to happen to him, Jesus came forward and said, ‘Who are you looking for?’ They answered, ‘Jesus the Nazarene.’ He said, ‘I am he.’ Now Judas the traitor was standing among them. When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he,’ they moved back and fell on the ground. He asked them a second time, ‘Who are you looking for?’ They said, ‘Jesus the Nazarene.’ Jesus replied, ‘I have told you that I am he. If I am the one you are looking for, let these others go.’ This was to fulfil the words he had spoken, ‘Not one of those you gave me have I lost.’ Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, ‘Put your sword back in its scabbard; am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?’ The cohort and its tribune and the Jewish guards seized Jesus and bound him. They took him first to Annas, because Annas was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. It was Caiaphas who had counselled the Jews, ‘It is better for one man to die for the people.’ Simon Peter, with another disciple, followed Jesus. This disciple, who was known to the high priest, went with Jesus into the high priest’s palace, but Peter stayed outside the door. So, the other disciple, the one known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the door-keeper and brought Peter in. The girl on duty at the door said to Peter, ‘Aren’t you another of that man’s disciples?’ He answered, ‘I am not.’ Now it was cold, and the servants and guards had lit a charcoal fire and were standing there warming themselves; so Peter stood there too, warming himself with the others. The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered, ‘I have spoken openly for all the world to hear; I have always taught in the synagogue and in the Temple where all the Jews meet together; I have said nothing in secret. Why ask me? Ask my hearers what I taught; they know what I said.’ At these words, one of the guards standing by gave Jesus a slap in the face, saying, ‘Is that the way you answer the high priest?’ Jesus replied, ‘If there is some offence in what I said, point it out; but if not, why do you strike me?’ Then Annas sent him, bound, to Caiaphas the high priest. As Simon Peter stood there warming himself, someone said to him, ‘Aren’t you another of his disciples?’ He denied it saying, ‘I am not.’ One of the high priest’s servants, a relation of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, said, ‘Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?’ Again Peter denied it; and at once a cock crowed.

Reflection Peter

I always feel rather sorry for Peter; a big character who jumps in, sometimes literally, with both feet but doesn’t always think things through. He hurtles in the water to meet Jesus but then sinks. A few hours before this episode he promised never to deny Jesus and now he’s denied him thrice. Full of bluster but crumpling under pressure; supposedly the leader of the apostles but he has, almost, the greatest failures. It’s easy to judge. How often have been in situations afraid to speak up? I went for a meal a year or so with a group of people who are socially liberal and assertive in their politics who didn’t intervene, myself included, when one of our number was borderline racist with the waitress. How often are we men drawn into sexist comments or we white people assumed to open to be drawn into racist conversations? Do we, like Peter, collude or speak up? How easy is it to tell the truth when ruin is a real consequence? Commentators marvel at how American Republican politicians know that Mr Trump is wrong on so many issues but won’t speak against him. Peter found speaking the truth when he was in danger impossible. It’s part of the tragedy of Good Friday – in his most desolate hour Jesus’ friends deserted him. Let’s pray

Forsaken God, help us to speak Your truth,
truth to power, truth when it’s inconvenient
truth even when it is uncomfortable, edgy or dangerous,
that Your truth may set us, and the world, free. Amen.

We sing Brian Wren’s Good Friday hymn, Here Hangs A Man Discarded.

Hymn Here Hangs a Man Discarded
Brian Wren© 1975, rev. 1995 Hope Publishing Company OneLicence # A-734713. Sung by Lance Culnane

Here hangs a man discarded, a scarecrow hoisted high,
a nonsense pointing nowhere to all who hurry by.
Can such a clown of sorrows still bring a useful word
when faith & hope seem phantoms and every hope absurd?

Yet here is help and comfort for lives by comfort bound,
when drums of dazzling progress give strangely hollow sound:
Life, emptied of all meaning, drained out in bleak distress,
can share in broken silence our deepest emptiness;

And love that freely entered the pit of life’s despair,
can name our hidden darkness and suffer with us there.
Christ, in our darkness risen, help all who long for light
to hold the hand of promise, till faith receives its sight.

Gospel Reading John 18:28 – 19:16

They then led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the Praetorium. It was now morning. They did not go into the Praetorium themselves to avoid becoming defiled and unable to eat the Passover. So Pilate came outside to them and said, ‘What charge do you bring against this man?’ They replied, ‘If he were not a criminal, we should not have handed him over to you.’ Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves, and try him by your own Law.’ The Jews answered, ‘We are not allowed to put anyone to death.’ This was to fulfil the words Jesus had spoken indicating the way he was going to die. So Pilate went back into the Praetorium and called Jesus to him and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Jesus replied, ‘Do you ask this of your own accord, or have others said it to you about me?’ Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? It is your own people and the chief priests who have handed you over to me: what have you done?’ Jesus replied, ‘Mine is not a kingdom of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews. As it is, my kingdom does not belong here.’ Pilate said, ‘So, then you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is you who say that I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.’ ‘Truth?’ said Pilate. ‘What is that?’ And so saying he went out again to the Jews and said, ‘I find no case against him. But according to a custom of yours I should release one prisoner at the Passover; would you like me, then, to release for you the king of the Jews?’ At this they shouted, ‘Not this man,’ they said, ‘but Barabbas.’ Barabbas was a bandit.” “Pilate then had Jesus taken away and scourged; and after this, the soldiers twisted some thorns into a crown and put it on his head and dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him and saying, ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ and slapping him in the face. Pilate came outside again and said to them, ‘Look, I am going to bring him out to you to let you see that I find no case against him.’ Jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said, ‘Here is the man.’ When they saw him, the chief priests and the guards shouted, ‘Crucify him! Crucify him!’ Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves and crucify him: I find no case against him.’ The people replied, ‘We have a Law, and according to that Law he ought to be put to death, because he has claimed to be Son of God.’ When Pilate heard them say this his fears increased. Re-entering the Praetorium, he said to Jesus, ‘Where do you come from?’ But Jesus made no answer. Pilate then said to him, ‘Are you refusing to speak to me? Surely you know I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?’ Jesus replied, ‘You would have no power over me at all if it had not been given you from above; that is why the man who handed me over to you has the greater guilt.’ From that moment Pilate was anxious to set him free, but the people shouted, ‘If you set him free you are no friend of Caesar’s; anyone who makes himself king is defying Caesar.’ Hearing these words, Pilate had Jesus brought out, and seated him on the chair of judgement at a place called the Pavement, in Hebrew Gabbatha. It was the Day of Preparation, about the sixth hour. ‘Here is your king,’ said Pilate to the Jews. But they shouted, ‘Away with him, away with him, crucify him.’ Pilate said, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king except Caesar.’ So at that Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

Reflection Pilate

I wonder if Pilate gave any thought to Jesus after this episode. Imperial administrators wouldn’t normally have bothered with a tiresome spat but he’d have been aware of the heightened atmosphere in Jerusalem with it being Passover; he knew custom dictated the release of a prisoner and he was shrewd enough to know the established hated Jesus. But would he have given any lasting thought to this poor unfortunate preacher? Well maybe…Jesus was very curt with Pilate. Those at risk of losing their lives tend to be very polite! They debate truth but Pilate has no truck with that; truth is whatever is expedient. They debate power and Jesus reminds Pilate his power comes from above, not from Rome. Heaven only knows what Pilate would have made of that; the elite, then and now, don’t like being reminded of their limitations. Then Jesus simply refuses to deign to speak to Pilate again. He’d have not been used to that level of rudeness, assertiveness, and dignity. How are we when people insist on telling us the truth? How are we when another’s assertiveness and dignity puts us in our place? How good are we at remembering the important incidents in our lives rather than the ones we prefer to remember? Let’s pray

Sorely pressed Lord, no one turned to help You,
yet You held Your dignity, spoke Your truth, and kept Your silence;
help us to act with dignity in the face of wrath, love in the face of hate,
and to know when to keep our silence. Amen.

We sing some words by German pastor, theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer We Turn to God When We are Sorely Pressed.

Hymn We Turn to God When We are Sorely Pressed
After Dietrich Bonhoeffer Hope Publishing Company OneLicence # A-734713
sung by Marcas MacLeòid

We turn to God when we are sorely pressed;
we pray for help and ask for peace and bread;
we seek release from illness, guilt, and death;
all people do, in faith or unbelief.

We turn to God when he is sorely pressed,
and find him poor, scorned, without roof and bread;
bowed under weight of weakness, sin and death
faith stands by God in his dark hour of grief.

God turns to us when we are sorely pressed,
and feeds our souls and bodies with his bread;
for one and all Christ gives himself in death;
through his forgiveness sin will find relief.

Gospel Reading John 19:17-42

They then took charge of Jesus, and carrying his own cross he went out to the Place of the Skull or, as it is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified him with two others, one on either side, Jesus being in the middle. Pilate wrote out a notice and had it fixed to the cross; it ran: ‘Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews’. This notice was read by many of the people, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the writing was in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. So the Jewish chief priests said to Pilate, ‘You should not write “King of the Jews”, but that the man said, “I am King of the Jews”. ‘ Pilate answered, ‘What I have written, I have written.’ When the soldiers had finished crucifying Jesus they took his clothing and divided it into four shares, one for each soldier. His undergarment was seamless, woven in one piece from neck to hem; so they said to one another, ‘Instead of tearing it, let’s throw dice to decide who is to have it.’ In this way the words of scripture were fulfilled: They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothes. That is what the soldiers did. Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. Seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, ‘Woman, this is your son.’ Then to the disciple he said, ‘This is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. After this, Jesus knew that everything had now been completed and, so that the scripture should be completely fulfilled, he said: I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine stood there; so, putting a sponge soaked in the wine on a hyssop stick, they held it up to his mouth. After Jesus had taken the wine he said, ‘It is fulfilled’; and bowing his head he gave up his spirit. It was the Day of Preparation, and to avoid the bodies’ remaining on the cross during the Sabbath — since that Sabbath was a day of special solemnity — the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken away. Consequently, the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with him and then of the other. When they came to Jesus, they saw he was already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water. This is the evidence of one who saw it — true evidence, and he knows that what he says is true — and he gives it so that you may believe as well. Because all this happened to fulfil the words of scripture: Not one bone of his will be broken; and again, in another place scripture says: They will look to the one whom they have pierced. After this, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus – though a secret one because he was afraid of the people – asked Pilate to let him remove the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission, so they came and took it away. Nicodemus came as well – the same one who had first come to Jesus at night-time – and he brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, following the Jewish burial custom. At the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in this garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been buried. Since it was the Jewish Day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Reflection Mary

Mary’s presence at the Cross makes our hearts ache. We can’t imagine how a mother would feel watching the slow, painful, execution of her son. Helpless to do anything other than just be present, she must have had so many emotions swirling around her. Jesus, even here at the end, seeks to provide for her and a new family is made for her with his friend John. We think of Simeon’s prophecy that a sword would pierce her own heart even as we wait for the spear to pierce Jesus. Her own prophetic song of revolt must have sounded hollow as she watches her son, helpless, suffer torture and shameful death. Here, in this moment, our theologies stand silent. Here, in this moment – made present to us every time we celebrate Communion – we see both the boundless love of Jesus and the hopeless love of Mary. Both are present in our own discipleship as we take up our crosses and stumble after Him.

Sometimes we tap into the boundless love of Jesus and do wonderful things, show amazing care and service to those outside our walls, and point to the coming Kingdom where all wrongs will be righted and justice finally made manifest in our world. But at other times we stand with little we can say, nothing we can do, and where all we have is our presence. When we keep vigil with the bereaved, wait with the terminally ill, and stand powerless against the horrors of the world we, like Mary, have nothing but our love and presence. Mary must have felt powerless and useless; Jesus must have felt profoundly grateful that His mother was there at the end as she was at the start.

Sometimes, for us, our powerlessness and uselessness blind us to the comfort that we can bring by simply being present. Let’s pray:

Comforted God,
help us to know when simply to be present,
to understand that words are not always necessary,
and that love has many ways of bringing comfort. Amen

We sing Samuel Crossman’s great lament, My Song is Love Unknown.

Hymn My Song is Love Unknown
Samuel Crossman (1664) Public domain courtesy of St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney

My song is love unknown, my Saviour’s love to me,
love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.
Oh, who am I, that for my sake my Lord should take frail flesh, and die?

He came from his blest throne, salvation to bestow:
but people scorned, and none the longed-for Christ would know.
But O my Friend, my Friend indeed, who at my need his life did spend!

Sometimes they strew his way, and his strong praises sing;
resounding all the day hosannas to their King.
Then ‘Crucify!’ is all their breath, and for his death they thirst and cry.

They rise, and needs will have my dear Lord made away;
a murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay.
Yet cheerful he to suffering goes, that he his foes from thence might free.

In life, no house, no home my Lord on earth might have;
in death, no friendly tomb but what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heaven was his home: but mine the tomb wherein he lay.

Here might I stay and sing: no story so divine;
never was love, dear King, never was grief like thine!
This is my Friend, in whose sweet praise I all my days could gladly spend.

The Reproaches

The Reproaches are a liturgical text from the 9th Century Church used on Good Friday, or in some Eastern Churches on Holy Saturday. The version we use today have been adapted for use in the Presbyterian Church of the USA. If you feel comfortable please join in with the responses in bold.

O my people, O my Church, what have I done to you, or in what have I offended you? Answer me.

I led you forth from the land of Egypt and delivered you by the waters of baptism, but you have prepared a cross for your Saviour.