BELLS CORNERS UNITED CHURCH
GOOD FRIDAY SERVICE
April 2, 2021
Moment of Reflection: Voices United #135 Beneath the Cross of Jesus – Violin: Leslie Wade
Opening Words:[1]
Dear friends, gather round
I have a story to tell
of one who reached inside himself
and took a handful of love
like a pile of stardust
and said: this is for you
it is all you need
it is all you will ever need
there is enough here
to change the whole world
take it
many laughed at him
mocked him
and ignored the invitation
but some dared to take it
and those who did
noticed something about this love
they found they could do what the gift-giver could do
they could stand with the lost
welcome the traveler
eat with the hungry
they found themselves doing what the man first did to them
give something of themselves to others
they became like the man
offering themselves
and as they offered themselves
others took the invitation
and many still do
and many still trust
it is enough to change the whole world.
Today I invite you to listen with your heart.
Through these words and music,
may we find our hearts warmed
by a love that is stronger than our fear,
and stronger even than the finality of death. Welcome to Good Friday.
Invitation to Gather and Opening Prayer[2]
I now invite you to gather in worship:
Surely God is in this time and place.
Help me notice.
Help me notice.
Help me notice.
Never do we notice God’s presence more than today – this day we call “Good”.
Nowhere do our hearts break more than today – this day we call “Good”.
Nowhere do we experience the power the power of love more than today –
this day we call “Good”.
We bless God that we can come to this place
in the sadness of our living,
and even here, find love,
as we wait with a dear one
for the kindness of death to arrive.
Come and let us worship God.
Let us pray. [3]
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
My Comforter, I have a need for your comforting presence.
In my troubled hours, you were always present.
Listen to my prayer.
Listen to my heart.
Holy God, you call us to walk the way of the cross,
but we choose the way that is easy,
or the one that promises us the best return.
Forgive us: open us to the faithful way,
the way of radical trust,
the way of true joy.
Journey with us as we take these final steps
of the Lenten journey.
(Moment of Silent Reflection)
On the cross, Jesus prayed, “Abba, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
That prayer is for us as well. We are loved, we are restored. Amen.
Music: Voices United #136 O Come and Mourn with Me – Choir 2017
Gospel Reading: “The Death of Jesus” Matthew 27: 45-50 (NRSV) Rev. Lorrie Lowes
45 From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 46 And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 47 When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “This man is calling for Elijah.” 48 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. 49 But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” 50 Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last.
May these words of sorrow remind us that death is part of human condition. But God’s love assures us of life even in the midst of grief and fear. Amen.
Music: Panis Angelicus – Cesar Franck arr. Craig Duncan - Violin: Leslie Wade
Sermon: “The Forsaken One” Rev. Kim Vidal
And about three o’clock, Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli lama-sabachthani?’ that is ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matthew 27:46)
I don’t understand why but sometimes life is a big disappointment. People we love die. Families fall apart. Friends betray us and we too often hurt those we love most. Life is not always a bed of roses. Or, as some would say, -- there are times when "Life sucks!" It sucks away our hopes and dreams; it steals away what is good and the beautiful; it robs us of joy and laughter; and even love itself seems to die. Life just doesn't 'live up' to our hopes and expectations. And sometimes it is agonizingly disappointing when the pain and suffering become nearly unbearable.
And here is Jesus hanging on the cross feeling abandoned and forsaken by his dear daddy, Abba! Father, God - Why oh why have you forsaken me?
During the six hours of his dying, he expressed the full range of human anguish—from the absence of water to the absence of God. “Eli, Eli, lama-sabachthani”. In the execution of a man whose only fault is to speak truth to power, the most heart-wrenching word of the dying Jesus to God is uttered. Sabachthani, forsaken: do you know what this means? It means "to abandon, to let go, to leave." It is awful to be forsaken. We like to say that no one is an island. It isn't natural for anyone to be totally alone. We long for companionship and we need others to go through our life’s journey. But when you are forsaken, you are on your own, you become an island in the flowing stream of humanity – lonely, isolated, alone. Jesus felt abandoned and forsaken by his disciples and friends. One betrayed him, another denied him, and who knows how many of them left in hiding afraid to be identified as his friends. To be forsaken means that no one is able or willing to help you. You are totally alone and helpless.
Some years ago, a famous scholar did a comparison of the death of Socrates and the death of Jesus. When the Greek philosopher Socrates was condemned to die, he drank a cup of hemlock poison with great serenity. In the face of death—with no god to call on—Socrates discussed the pros and cons of immortality with composure and reasonableness. He died the way we would like to die. Scholars call it “death with dignity.”
When we turn to the death of Jesus, we see it was nothing like the death of Socrates. In the Garden of Gethsemane Mark says he was trembling. Matthew says he threw himself to the ground, while Luke says he was sweating and his sweat fell like great drops of blood. He doesn’t want to drink the cup of death. He doesn’t want to be alone. Can’t you watch for just one hour? When the end comes he is not in control but is calling out desperately like a child abandoned by its parent.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?". Was not Jesus, the pious believer, simply reciting a verse he had known since childhood? After all, this was a verse quoted from Psalm 22. Dying people, amazingly, revert to prayers that formed them in their younger, healthier days—the way a person who hasn’t spoken for days may recite the Lord’s Prayer. "Now I lay me down to sleep," says the 90-year old in the nursing home, "I pray the Lord my soul to keep." O perhaps some would recite the ever-beautiful Psalm 23rd, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…”
Was Jesus really forsaken by God or did he only feel abandoned? We have these moments ourselves. When we are plunged into a deep place and feel abandoned by God, we too, will cry out to God. We may feel we are praying—desperately, fervently, unknowingly—to an Absence, like believers left hanging in the dark. St. John of the Cross spoke of the believer’s dark night of soul. Luther spoke tremblingly of the hidden God. The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that his generation might have to live as if there was no God but always in the presence of God.
Take heart. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” were spoken by Jesus to express his despair – a human emotion that is so real when one faces death. Jesus' friends knew it. His mother Mary agonizingly witnessed his son slowly dying. Can you feel it? They, too, were devastated. Their leader, their wisdom teacher, their beloved friend dies. He was supposed to be the one who would save them from their social, political and religious oppressions. Without him, their hopes die as well. And there is no one to replace him. Not in that moment of sorrow.
On this day, when death seems to take over our senses and our heart, Jesus affirms the truth about dying, of being abandoned and being forsaken by the God of love. But somehow, we forgot one thing. Others live with hope. There were the women and the beloved disciple at the foot of the cross. There was his mother who keeps on praying that he would no longer suffer. Yes, they held on to the painful disappointments of losing Jesus, but they lived to spread the good news of God’s love and his teachings to others. There was Joseph of Arimathea who came forward to wrap the body of Jesus with spices and lay it in a tomb. Deep in his heart, Joseph knew that Jesus deserves a burial fit for a decent, honourable man, And a stone is rolled in place to cover great sadness and disappointment.
When life is a painful disappointment, we do what we can. We wait. We sit on our agonizing loss and wait. It is all we can do to look at the stone in front of the tomb and to weep. Life may abandon us, forsaken us, crucify us but we are not alone. The women, the beloved disciple, mother Mary, those believers did not give up. They were with Jesus until his death. And did Jesus give up on God? I don’t think so. Jesus clung to God with all his might during the darkest hour of his life. And so must we.
On this Good Friday, we take all the unbearable failures and let-downs of our lives, wrap them up with spices and lay them in the tomb. And we wait as we cling to the God of hope. And God would seem to speak, but barely a silent whisper to those parts of our souls, a voice buried in the despair of the cross: “In this world of death, of violence, of hurts and pains, I will bring about something new. Just wait in hope. There is new life that awaits us at the tomb.” Amen.
The Dismissal
And now receive God’s blessings:
As we go into the growing shadows of this Good Friday
into the silent unknowing of Holy Saturday,
may we carry in our hearts, the crucified Christ.
May our hearts open like a waiting tomb, a tender womb,
and in the sheltered silence, may we cradle all that is wounded, all that is broken.
We go embracing all that is touched by pain and fear until we feel the pulse of new life begin to stir. For God is not done with us yet.
Go in peace and in love. Amen.
Blessing: May the Love of God Shine Through You – Choir 2017
[1] Roddy Hamilton, posted in Listening to the Stones blog.
[2] Bob Root, Gathering Lent/Easter 2021, Year B. Used with permission.
[3] Bev Ripley Hall & Beth W. Johnson, Gathering, LE 2017.