Good Friday

The service has been provided below for you to follow.  Here is the YouTube link(just below) that you can participate in at home or  sit and listen.

May your Good Friday be quiet and contemplative as you listen once again to our story.

WORDS OF WELCOME & CALL TO WORSHIP: (Isaiah 53:1-3)

          The Lord be with you.
All     And also with you.
          We gather here to worship God.

All     We gather to remember how Jesus suffered and died for us and to thank God 

          for his love and his mercy

          Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
All     He grew up before God like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.

          He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that 

          we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, 

          and familiar with suffering.

All     Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we 

          esteemed him not.

HYMN  When I Survey the Wondrous Cross #386 v: 1,3,4
When I survey, the wondrous cross

on which the Prince of glory died,

my richest gain I count but loss,

and pour contempt on all my pride.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,

sorrow and love flow mingled down;
did e'er such love and sorrow meet,

or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

that were an offering far too small;

love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

PRAYER OF INVOCATION

Let us pray.

All     Merciful God - as we remember how your son Jesus bore our sins in his 

          body on the cross, how  seven times he spake, seven words of love, we ask 

          you to bless our hearing. Father, as we recall how all three hours His silence 

          cried for mercy on the souls of all, we ask you to help us to understand the 

          mystery of your love, and make us into a people who are ever more worthy 

          of it. Amen.

THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF JESUS

THE FIRST WORD      Luke 23:33-34

When they came to the place called "The Skull", they nailed Jesus to the cross there, and the two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Jesus said "Forgive them, Father! They do not know what they are doing."

Meditation on the First Word

Song      Calvary                                 Spiritual: Arranged by Janet Sullivan Whitaker

THE SECOND WORD      Luke 23:39-43
One of the criminals hanging there threw insults at him: "Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" The other one, however, rebuked him, saying: "Don't you fear God? Here we are all under the same sentence. Ours, however, is only right, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did; but he has done no wrong." And he said to Jesus, "Remember me, Jesus, when you come as King!" Jesus said to him, "I tell you this: Today you will be in Paradise with me." 

Meditation on The Second Word

Song      Too Long Ago                       Words and Music by Gordon Light

                                                              Common Cup Company

THE THIRD WORD      John 19:25-27
Standing close to Jesus' cross were his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing there; so he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son." Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother." And from that time the disciple took her to live in his home. 

Meditation on the Third Word

Song       At The Cross Her Vigil Keeping

THE FOURTH WORD      Mark 15:33-34
And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Elo-i, elo-i, lama sabach-thani?" which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Meditation on the Fourth Word

Song      Sorrowing Song                                    Robin Mann
                                                                             Together in Song #689


THE FIFTH WORD      John 19:28
After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), "I thirst."

Meditation on the Fifth Word

Song      Will I lose you to the Wind                   Words and Music Gordon Light

                                                                              The Common Cup Company

THE SIXTH WORD John 19:29-30
A bowl was there, full of cheap wine mixed with vinegar, so a sponge was soaked in it, put on stalk of hyssop and lifted up to his lips. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished"

Meditation on the Sixth Word

Song      Bitter was the Night                              Sydney Carter


THE SEVENTH WORD      Luke 23:46
Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" And having said this he breathed his last.

Meditation on the Seventh Word


Song      To Calvary                                            James Koerts
                                                                            Published by Lorenz Company

Responsive Reading: Isaiah 53-4-6,9
L         Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed

          him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
All     But he was wounded for our transgressions and he was bruised for our iniquities. 

          Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole.
L        All we like sheep have gone astray; each of us has turned to our own way; 

          and the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all.
All     He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, 

          although he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Prayer of Dedication
          Lord God, you have given us everything.
All     You have not held anything back.
          Help us in like manner to give of ourselves
All     Sanctify us in Christ's name.
          Bless us and all that we think, feel, say, and do that we, like Jesus, 

          may be a blessing unto others,
All     We ask this and all things that we ask of you through him,

          saying the prayer that he taught us... Our Father....

HYMN:  There Is A Green Hill Far Away     202 v. 1, 3, 5
There is a green hill far away
outside a city wall,

where the dear Lord was crucified
who died to save us all.

He died that we might be forgiven, 

he died to make us good,

that we might go at last to heaven,
saved by his precious blood.

O dearly, dearly, has he loved,

and we must love him too,
and trust in his redeeming blood,
and try his words to do.

BENEDICTION



Service and Meditation copyright - Rev. Richard J. Fairchild - Spirit Networks, 1999-2006

Music *Used with permission from One License 605236