Good Friday March 29, 2013

The Gathering

Music                                                                          Brent Reed, Amy Gilligham & David Zeng

Congregational

"Wonderful Cross" 

"Jesus Paid it All"

Vocal Solo (Brent)

"Jesus, Son of God"

Call to Worship 

Leader: What’s happened? Why are you here?

People: We have come because they have crucified our Lord.

Leader: Who has crucified your Lord?

People: The Roman soldiers, at Pilate’s command,

as requested by the Jewish leaders.

Leader: But I heard you yell “Crucify!” in the awful silence of your souls.

People: We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

— from The Suffering Servant: A Good Friday Service on Isaiah 53 by Tim Schuurman. Posted on Reformed Worship. http://www.reformedworship.org/

The Burdens

Naming the Bricks                                                                       Terry Webster

We are invited to take "bricks" located under our chairs  
and to add our own burdens to the label they bear.

Prayer                                                                                          Terry Webster

The Build

Stacking the Tower                                                         Mark CR

Mark will invite us to bring the "bricks" from our seats forward as the music plays. 
He will lift each brick up and show us the main label or burden it represents 
before placing it in the "jenga" type structure.

Our suggestions of burdens for the labels

Addiction     Worry     Forgiveness     Unspoken      Anxiety      Shame      Depression      Unemployment      Future      Finances     Doubt      Infidelity      Regrets     Infertility     Sin     Pride     Perfection     Grief    Too Busy     Gossip     Time     Difficult Relationships     Time      Greed      Fear      Exhaustion      Selfishness     Illness      Bullying

Musical Meditation                                                         Amy Gillingham

The Significance

Reading with John 10:11-18                                                            Jennifer Hall & Russell Noss

Jennifer Hall: 

Stones are what people wanted to throw at Jesus during his life.

Stones are also what surrounded him at the tomb

and through them he pushed his way back into life on the third day.

Could we ,

as we remember our Lord's death and see how he was crucified

by the action or the apathy of people like ourselves,

remember that it was for our sins he died?

Let us remember the wrong things in our life which burden us,

threaten each other and offend God.

And after we have recognized what these things are,

let us give them to God to take away.

For Jesus is the one who said, 

"Give me your burdens."

and Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

We'll be silent for a moment and then we'll sing, 

"We will lay our burden down"

and as we sing, we can, if we want to,

lay down the burdens of our hearts.

Musicians lead "We Will Lay Our Burden Down"

Listen to these words of Jesus, spoke directly to us:

Russ Noss:

I am the good shepherd

and I know my sheep

and I lay down my life for them.

There is no greater love than this

that a man should lay down his life for his friends

and you are my friends,

if you do what I have commanded.

Whoever believes in me,

I will never turn away.

Whoever has faith in me,

even though he or she dies, will live forever.

Now I am going to my Father and your Father,

to my God and your God,

but I shall come back and take you to myself,

that where I am, you may be also.

------"Laying Our Burden Down" from Stages Along the Way: Worship Resources for Lent and Easter. Wild Goose Resources Group through GIA, 2000.

Musical Offering                                                                                   Chancel Choir, FCC

"Behold the Lamb!" (Larson)

The Story

Scripture Reading: Luke 23:26-549 (NIV)                  Peggy Horner, Ben Wilson & John Boling 

At the asterisks *, the candles on the table are extinguished one by one until only the Christ candle is still burning. Tallia Frye and Ryan Biers are the candle snuffers.

Peggy Horner:

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. A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him.*

Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 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!’

Then ‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!”
and to the hills, “Cover us!” For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed.*  

Ben Wilson:

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. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.*

The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”*

The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”*

There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.*

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”*

But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”*

John Boling:

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,

or the sun stopped shining.* And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.* Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.*

The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.”

When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.*

The Darkness

Musical Meditation with Scripture                                                         Amy Gillingham

"Quartet for the End of Time"  Messiaen

Scripture: Isaiah 53:4-6(NIV)                                                                   Amy Yaeger

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,


yet we considered him punished by God,


 stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, 

he was crushed for our iniquities;


the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
 

and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

All the lights go out.

The Christ Candle leaves the room.                                                          Ryan Byers & Tallia Frye

The Fall

The Tower Falls                                                                                         Mark CR

The Rubble

The Christ Candle returns.                                                                        Ryan Byers & Tallia Frye

Lights come back up

Hymn                                                                             Amy Gillingham, Brent Reed, & David Zeng

"Were You There"

Closing Reading                                                                                        Anna Hope Curwood

Here hangs a man discarded, a scarecrow hoisted high,

a nonsense pointing nowhere to all who hurry by.

Can such a clown of sorrows still bring a useful word

when faith and love seem phantoms

and every hope absurd?

Yet here is help and comfort for lives by comfort bound,

when drums of dazzling progress give strangely hollow sound:

Life, emptied of all meaning, drained out in bleak distress,

can share in broken silence my deepest emptiness;

And love that freely entered the pit of life's despair,

can name our hidden darkness and suffer with us there.

Christ, in our darkness risen, help all who long for light

to hold the hand of promise till faith receives its sight.
--#39 from Piece Together Praise. Brian Wren, Hope Publishing, 1995.

Closing Song                                                                 Amy Gillingham, Brent Reed, & David Zeng

"Wonderful Cross" (reprise)

Benediction            

We will depart in silence, accepting the peace of God's presence, for no matter how dark the moment, Immanuel,  God is with us.