Good Friday: 3 Days: His Punishment, Our Peace

Good Friday is very different than a funeral. At a funeral, we celebrate the blessings of someone's earthly life. But we also mourn the fact of their death. Their death is something we wish we could forget. In the case of Jesus, his death is the very thing we gather to celebrate and remember. In fact, we prolong the remembrance. We dwell on the details. We even call this day "good." For we know why Jesus willingly endured the agony of the cross. It wasn't a tragic miscarriage of justice. Jesus suffered this punishment vicariously. He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. Because he did, we are now right with our holy God. Jesus' punishment is our peace.

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Good Friday - Behold the Man

2000 years ago, God died. The Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, brought Jesus before the Jewish mob. thrusting forward a bloody and battered man with a mock crown and cape around him, Pilate shouted, “Ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος” (Latin: “Ecce, homo!”) “Behold, the man!” Pilate could not have known how his words fall on our ears, for Pilate holds before us the God-Man Jesus: true man who will live under the law for all humankind, and true God who will keep that law perfectly, and then die.

This service is a meditation on the words written by those gospel writers that recorded the crucifixion of Jesus. It allows the words of the accounts to speak for themselves, and it allows us to listen and then respond in love and thankfulness through song. You will hear an almost complete account of the events on Good Friday, from morning until afternoon. Be sorrowful over your sins and what it cost God to save you. But rejoice over your Savior, who was willing to pay.

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It Is Finished - Good Friday: Service of the Cross

As the middle service of the Triduum, Good Friday is prepared for by Holy Thursday. In turn, it leads into the Easter Vigil. The absence of a benediction the previous evening and again on Good Friday underscores the connectedness of the Triduum services. Good Friday is not a “funeral” for Jesus, but an austere celebration of the Lamb and his sacrifice. The bare altar, symbolic of Christ, is the focus along with a large, rough-finished wood cross that is placed before it.  The Service of the Cross consists of two parts: (I) the Word and (II) the Meditation on the Cross. The service is highly meditative in nature and is celebrated simply and not hurried.

All of human history hinges on this day. Humbling himself before the will of the Father and the blood-thirst of men, the Son of God is slaughtered. Even worse than an ignomible death, the Father must reject his own Son since he bears the sin of the world. But all this served God’s saving purpose, and so we call this Friday…Good.