Friday Five: Good Friday

Sally from RevGals hosts this week's Friday Five:

It seems almost irreverent to post a Friday Five on Good Friday, so I will try to treat it with some respect. I am still mulling over the darkness of last nights Tenebrae Service, the silence as we left was profound, and although I travelled home with others we did not speak, there was a holiness about it.....and yet we know that holiness was born of horror!

So as we enter into this darkest of days I offer you this Friday Five:

1. Of all the gospel accounts of the crucifixion, which one stands out for you, and why?
John speaks to me because the writer includes the very human frailties of the disciples and even his mother. He shows how they do not understand what Jesus is doing, or why God seems to have suddenly "changed" directions. Their doubts, questions and confusion ring tanglibly in my own.

2.Do you identify with any people in this account, how does that challenge you?
Like Peter - I let my doubts run away from me, and pull me from God.
Like Mary - I want more than what God has planned
Like Pilate and the Pharisees - I don't want my privately ordered world to be re-arranged or shaken up.
Like the soldiers - I am callous and indifferent to the suffering around me -- until God gets my attention with a thunderclap
Like the disciples - I struggle with my  fears and unbelief in the face of that much love and sacrifice.

3. Hymns or silence?
I usually use a combination. Music to get me focused. Silence to be quiet in the Presence. Today on pray-as-you-go I was drawn into prayer by the music of Antonio Lotti -- the piece Crucifixus from Exultate Deo is lovely, haunting and a soft reminder of the suffering Christ went through for my sin.

4. Post a poem or a quote that sums up Good Friday for you?
The words to Orlando Gibbon's Drop, drop slow tears speak to me. I posted a music video of them here...

Drop, drop, slow tears, and bathe those beauteous feet,

which brought from heaven the news and Prince of Peace.

Cease not, wet eyes, His mercies to entreat;

to cry for vengeance sin doth never cease.

In your deep floods drown all my faults and fears;

nor let His eye see sin, but through my tears.

5. Is there a tradition you could not be without, a tradition that makes Good Friday, Good Friday?

Not being on church staff this year, I find it a bit difficult. Also being from a non-liturgical church, there seems to be little to make this day any different from the rest of the calendar. We will be gathering with friends for dinner tonight, which seems altogether appropriate. I have spent more time in reflection and writing this morning... the promise of Spring, of Easter morning, is shining outside my window this morning.

Glory be to God for the marvelous work of the cross!
I am blessed and encouraged.

We adore you Oh Christ 

and we praise You

because by Your holy cross 

You have redeemed the world.

Amen.