Good Friday Service
Call to worship:
Today we join those… who stand at the foot of the Cross… wondering… how it ever came to this…
that the one we thought would avenge us against our enemies…
and win back for us… everything we rightly deserve…
The one we believed to be the Messiah…sent from God…
is too weak even to save himself …
How did it come to this… that the one who
spoke out so strongly against the powers and principalities of
this world…against the greed and injustice and corruption…
how is it he can’t even muster… a mild rebuke…
for those who ridicule… abuse and torture him…
that the one we thought would avenge us against our enemies…
and win back for us… everything we rightly deserve…
The one we believed to be the Messiah…sent from God…
is too weak even to save himself …
How did it come to this… that the one who
spoke out so strongly against the powers and principalities of
this world…against the greed and injustice and corruption…
how is it he can’t even muster… a mild rebuke…
for those who ridicule… abuse and torture him…
Jesus has been betrayed by those he loves…time after time…
but why does he chose the Psalm he cries from the Cross? Suppose even God has abandoned him?
but why does he chose the Psalm he cries from the Cross? Suppose even God has abandoned him?
Psalm 22. Lachlan Turnbull
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry out by day, but you don’t answer,
by night, and am not silent.
Yet you’re enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praise of Israel.
In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.
They cried to you and were saved;
they trusted you and weren’t disappointed.
But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
PS 22:8 "He trusts in the LORD;
let the LORD rescue him. Let the Lord deliver him, since he delights in him." PS 22:9 Yet you brought me out of the womb;
you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast.
PS 22:10 From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother's womb you have been my God. Don’t be far from me, for trouble is near
and there is no one to help.
From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
before those who fear you I’ll fulfill my vows.
This is my song…The poor will eat and be satisfied;
they who seek the LORD will praise him--
may your hearts live forever!
Diane: And as we stand looking up at the old rugged cross we know Jesus desolation is for us and for the salvation of the world.
Hymn: The old rugged cross
The Gospel Luke 23:26-34
The Crucifixion of Jesus
26 As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28 Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then
“‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!”
and to the hills, “Cover us!”’
31 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Good Friday year A Sermon 11 Father, forgive them!
Title slide
He could have said other words, but he didn’t…
yes we heard him right…it was those particular words which came from Jesus’ lips…‘Forgive them, Father. They don’t know what they are doing.’
He didn’t call for his friends to avenge his death…
he did not demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth…instead he prayed with words shot through with understanding and compassion…
for the criminals who hung on either side of him…
and for the crowd shouting abuse below…and maybe we hope… understanding and compassion for us too.
‘Forgive them, Father. They don’t know what they’re doing.’
Blank slide
A pardon… freely offered…to people who…
by any human standard of justice… just don’t deserve it….
Yet, out of unendurable pain…
Jesus cries out… God’s justice…and from the Cross …proclaims the paradox of grace…forgiveness of sins…
not earned…but offered freely as a gift. [pause]
From the cross we hear no words of condemnation…
nor anger…nor self-pity…but only words
that echo what Jesus taught about who we should love and who we should forgive…and the blessed place of mercy in the divine scheme of things…
From the suffering vantage point of God...
the cycle of reprisal…revenge and retribution…born from nationalistic ethnic and personal un…forgiveness…
would simply never… ever… save the world…
but forgiveness and mercy…would.
Of all the religions of the world…the idea of grace
is unique to Christianity… the Gospel of Jesus proclaims there’s no way… we can work or earn our way…
into God’s love. It’s just there for us offered freely. There is no other religion on earth that announces this good news.
Yet even when we’ve heard it a thousand times…
we still don’t get it…
The notion of God’s mercy and forgiveness and grace… is hard…for even Christians to accept…
and even harder for us to imitate. To even try to follow Jesus in this way… remains completely counter cultural ...and even in the news this week…continues to be labelled naïve... idealistic…even crazy…
as though God revealed by Jesus on the Cross…
doesn’t really understand how the world works…
and we do.
There are two reasons why... though we aspire to follow Jesus… we will refuse to extend this mercy and this grace to others…and even to ourselves…
There are two reasons… one’s about the cost…
and the other’s about ignorance…
You see Jesus revealed on the Cross that forgiveness always costs the forgiver something
… maybe to the extreme of… pain and ridicule and death… God in Christ…was prepared to suffer and die rather than retaliate…against a humanity free to reject their creator’s love…
Yes, as Jesus’ disciples… sometimes we are called…
to take up our Cross…just as he did. But more often than not… the cost of loving and forgiving…is less expensive
sometimes all we have to give up…is our pride …all we have to let go… is our anger and our bitterness… all we have to sacrifice…is our dream of payback and revenge.
And as for ignorance…well it’s clear from Jesus words … that from a divine perspective…those who betrayed and tortured and killed Jesus…
didn’t really understand… the full impact…
of their actions. ‘Forgive them, Father!
For they don’t know what they are doing.’
Some people… just stood by… and let the atrocity happen… others were actual perpetrators of the violence and the abuse…still others like Jesus’ mother were victims along with her son…
none of them… really knows the full story…
and what about the pain and grief… endured by the One …to whom Jesus prays…who understands that?
And it’s true for us today…who understands…
for God’s love to prevail…having created us in love and in freedom…God has no choice but to forgive us… because God knows… we can never fully understand the cosmic consequences of what we do…
to ourselves and one another and to the earth. We are fallen and we need to be saved from ourselves…
God bears the full cost of forgiveness on the Cross.
And in our ignorance we don’t even understand what forgiveness is. We don’t realise that it’s a decision not a feeling…Jesus is suffering and dying on the Cross ….forgiving doesn’t make him feel better…
this kind of love hurts…
We just don’t get…that Jesus decision to forgive means…the betrayer…the abuser…the murderer…
no longer owes him anything…no longer owes God anything …their debt is cancelled.
In the divine court room… the justice of demanding retribution…just doesn’t work…
because no one could afford…to pay back what they owe
[pause]
Often Christians make the mistake of thinking Jesus somehow changed God’s mind…
but that’s completely inconsistent
with Jesus being fully divine…
Instead it’s clear from the Gospel we proclaim…
that Jesus reveals God’s mind… Jesus reveals God’s will and God’s purposes…and calls us to follow him.
Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing…
I pray you will trust Jesus words from the cross and that you will walk with humility and obedience out these doors
to respond to that love and that grace with mercy ourselves. In this is the salvation of the world.
Hymn when I survey the wondrous Cross
Prayer of Confession
Beloved God…Creator Redeemer and Spirit… forgive us…
for we don’t know what we’re doing. We think we understood your word to us made flesh in Jesus Christ… but we continue to ignore his plea for humility and mercy…
for we don’t know what we’re doing. We think we understood your word to us made flesh in Jesus Christ… but we continue to ignore his plea for humility and mercy…
we want the world to live in peace yet we applaud the spilling of blood for our own cause…we accept the poverty of others without speaking out and standing up for them…
We hold six inch nails in our own hands…
And yet you pursue us with your love…
God of everlasting covenants,
we come to you this day in sorrow.
We come with self-inflicted pains
of broken trust and chosen wrong,
half-free, half-bound by inner chains,
swept along by social forces,
confined by powers and systems left unopposed
seeking hope for humankind while holding on to resentment and angers and judgment.
We stand at the foot of the Cross hearing words of mercy spoken our of unbearable pain and in the shadow of death… God help us have the strength and courage to resist evil in all its forms…particularly in our own hearts as we confess all we’ve done to crucify you in our own lives.
together as your broken body…trusting in your infinite mercy…
we dare to ask for the fullness of your forgiveness and your grace.
we dare to ask for the fullness of your forgiveness and your grace.
This we pray in the name of the one who came to save us…Jesus Christ. AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
Jesus Christ our servant king spoke forgiveness from the Cross, today receive the assurance of his pardon;
God continues to forgive…God’s love is stronger than death.
Hymn This is our God, the servant king
Diane and Cheryl walk to the back as Reg reads.
By the power of Christ’s submission on the Cross
the powers have been disabled,
but they’re still rebellious (as we are),
and still need to be reminded of their place
in God’s creation. (As we do)
And so as his followers we look to the example of Jesus. who acts boldly and speaks loudly against the powers to bring things out into the open…[pause] and then submits to the consequences...
and in apparent weakness… endures a suffering
in which the hostility… and pride and arrogance and fear…
of the offender are absorbed.
And we who follow him still seek the signs of the continuing Passion of God in the world…not in abstract ideas…
but in the human grief and suffering which refuses to retaliate…and continues to show mercy.
Cheryl and Diane sing Were you there
We walk out in silence
