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Lenten Meditation for Good Friday, April 14, 2017

lenten candles

When I was a girl, for part of my childhood, we didn’t go to a Good Friday service – my mother thought it was too sad and difficult. So we would go to the Tenebrae service on Maundy Thursday, and call it good for both days. Later on, when the church had the traditional 3 hour service, we would go for a portion of the service, because, of course, you are allowed to come and go during the hymns – you are not expected to stay for the whole 3 hours.

Good Friday is tough.

I don’t think anyone really wants to think about what it represents. No one wants to really think about a loved one dying, and especially in such a tragic and cruel and public manner.

And no one wants to think that their Saviour, the One who promised eternal life, would die, let alone die in such a heinous way.

But he did.

And so, we must enter into this death, feel the heaviness of it, feel the sorrow of it, and feel the cruelty of it. For if we do not, then Easter’s joy is hollow.

The Readings 

Psalm 22

Wisdom 1:16-2:1,12-22 or Genesis. 22:1-14

1 Peter 1:10-20

John 13:36-38

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