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Good Friday at Home 2020
By the Rev. John Paylor
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
April 10, 2020
Good Friday is the most dramatic and mysterious day in Christian history and in the history of the world. The name itself is a challenge to our natural train of thought and understanding -- how can anything so unjust, so ungrateful, so brutal ever be described as "good"?
But it is good, because it is the means which God has chosen to remedy the injustice, the ingratitude, the brutality of which our human nature is so capable in rebellion against God. Today is the 75th anniversary of the death of a truly good man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Christian pastor who opposed the wickedness of National Socialism and its demonic leaders, and was executed on 9 April 1945 when it was obvious to the authorities that their regime was very soon to be destroyed. His martyrdom has ever since been a powerful witness and example to the world of courage, determination and truth in the face of evil itself.
Out of the death of Jesus on a Cross comes the greatest of all good, which is the defeat of the power of sin to separate us from God, and therefore the Resurrection on Easter Day in which God wants us all one day to share. On Good Friday Jesus paid for the redemption of sinners with the highest price of all, his own blood.
We are unable to gather around the Lord's Table this year to hear the events of that day recounted, to venerate the Cross, and to receive Holy Communion. So I am sending an Order of Service, Good Friday Service at Home, together with the extended readings from the Old Testament, the New Testament and St John's Gospel, and the special set of intercessions used on Good Friday. We are invited in the order of service to make our Spiritual Communion, by asking for grace to receive the Sacrament spiritually, since this year it is impossible for us to meet to receive the Body of Christ.
It is customary for this service to take place at 3pm, the hour when Jesus cried out and died on the Cross (Matthew 27.45-50) but it can be used at any time tomorrow.
In the order of service, I have listed the hymns which we would have sung, and the links to online recordings, complete with the words, are posted below.
With my prayer that we may all be strengthened by the Holy Spirit in fellowship with the Church throughout all the ages, as we ponder the unimaginable generosity and love of God, revealed in the face of his Son on the Cross.
Music for Good Friday
There is a green hill far away https://youtu.be/ogRvBVRvqvk
When I survey the wondrous Cross https://youtu.be/FhvXOIVsRv4
How great Thou art https://youtu.be/Cc0QVWzCv9k
Glory be to Jesus https://youtu.be/ctRlo_HilB0?list=RDctRlo_HilB0
For reflection: Miserere me, Deus by Gregorio Allegri https://youtu.be/H3v9unphfi0
