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---------- Holy Week 2018 ---------- Good Friday

Good Friday

Good Friday is a reminder of the darkness experienced by Christ on our behalf. Out of true death, comes true life. His death and resurrection comprise the mysteries at the very heart of Christian faith. On this day, Christ became the, "...Paschal (Passover) Lamb of our salvation, by whose blood we have been purchased unto God as His own consecrated people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood. Christians today gather at the foot of the cross with Mary the Lord's Mother, the beloved disciple John, the repentant Mary Magdalene and her several companions, the confessing Centurion and all others who have, down through the ages...(been) made holy by the redeeming act of the God who loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son."

Psalm 22
Scripture Readings
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest..But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults..."
Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12
The suffering servant

Hebrews 10:16-25
The way to God is opened

John 18:1 - 19:42
The Passion and death of Jesus Christ
------ Common Prayer for Good Friday ------ (Click to View)
Collect for Good Friday
"Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen." -The Book of Common Prayer
"The Final Days of Jesus: Friday"
A short video highlighting the events of Good Friday.
Details of a Roman crucifixion and the necessity of Christ's suffering are discussed. 
Music
"Last Days" by the Brothers of Abriem Harp set to altered footage from a silent film (Vie et Passion du Christ) that was made in 1903. Album review and more information about this album from Victoria Emily Jones at artandtheology.org
Poetry
East Coker, IV
by 
T.S. Eliot (from The Four Quartets)

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we fell
The sharp compassion of the healer’s art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s, curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food;
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood–
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

Quotes
"The cross of Christ is the true ground and chief cause of Christian hope."
—Leo the Great (400-461)

"When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay (the matter grows too difficult for human speech), but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.”
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

"For in the cross of Christ, as in a splendid theater, the incomparable goodness of God is set before the whole world. The glory of God shines, indeed, in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than in the cross.”
- John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John

"Who can describe the bond of God's love? Who is able to explain the majesty of its beauty? The height to which love leads is indescribable
… . In love the master received us, Jesus Christ our Lord, in accordance with God's will gave his blood for us, and his flesh for our flesh, and his life for our lives."
—Clement of Rome (c. 96)
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