Opening Prayer
Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP 220)
TEXT
Mark 15:31-33 (NLT)
The leading priests and teachers of religious law also mocked Jesus. “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down from the cross so we can see it and believe him!” Even the two criminals who were being crucified with Jesus ridiculed him.
At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock.
READ
“He saved others, but he can’t save himself!” “Come down; if we see it, we’ll believe!”
Still they cry, still he hangs there, still his face draws tight in sorrow. But the sorrow lies most in his love for these mockers, these crucifiers, this fallen human race he came to redeem.
-Brian Rhea
Good Friday
Lord Jesus Christ, grown faint upon the Cross,
A sorrow beyond sorrow in Thy look,
The unutterable craving for my soul;
Thy love of me sufficed
To load upon Thee and make good my loss
In face of darkened heaven and earth that shook:—
In face of earth and heaven, take Thou my whole heart,
O Lord Jesus Christ.
—Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)