Friday morning March 25
Good Friday
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Preparation
Opening response
Lord, open our lips
and our mouth will proclaim your praise.
Let your ways be known upon earth,
your saving power among the nations.
Prayer of thanksgiving
Blessed are you, Lord God of our salvation,
to you be praise and glory forever.
As a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief
your only Son was lifted up
that he might draw the whole world to himself.
May we walk this day in the way of the cross
and always be ready to share its weight,
declaring your love for all the world.
Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God forever.
Hymn
O love divine, what hast thou done?
Charles Wesley
O love divine, what hast thou done?
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father's coeternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree;
The immortal God for me hath died
My Lord, my Love is crucified
Behold him, all ye that pass by,
The bleeding Prince of life and peace!
Come, sinners, see your Savior die
And say, was ever grief like his?
come, feel with me his blood applied;
My Lord, my Love is crucified.
Is crucified for me and you,
To bring us rebels back to God.
Believe, believe the record true;
Ye all are bought with Jesus' blood.
Pardon for all flows from his side;
My Lord, my Love is crucified.
The let us sit beneath his cross
And gladly catch the healing stream.
All things for him account but loss
And give up all our hearts to him.
Of nothing think or speak beside:
My Lord, my Love is crucified.
Confession of sin
Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.
Silence may be kept.
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your name. Amen.
Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins
through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all
goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in
eternal life.
Amen.
The Word of God
Psalm 69
Refrain:
God, in your great and faithful love, answer me with your certain salvation!
Save me, God,
because the waters have reached my neck!
I have sunk into deep mud.
My feet can’t touch the bottom!
I have entered deep water;
the flood has swept me up.
I am tired of crying.
My throat is hoarse.
My eyes are exhausted with waiting for my God.
More numerous than the hairs on my head
are those who hate me for no reason.
My treacherous enemies,
those who would destroy me, are countless.
Must I now give back
what I didn’t steal in the first place?
God, you know my foolishness;
my wrongdoings aren’t hidden from you.
Lord God of heavenly forces!—
don’t let those who hope in you
be put to shame because of me.
God of Israel!—
don’t let those who seek you
be disgraced because of me.
I am insulted because of you.
Shame covers my face.
I have become a stranger to my own brothers,
an immigrant to my mother’s children.
Because passion for your house has consumed me,
the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me!
I wept while I fasted—
even for that I was insulted.
When I wore funeral clothes,
people made fun of me.
Those who sit at the city gate muttered things about me;
drunkards made up rude songs.
But me? My prayer reaches you, Lord,
at just the right time.
God, in your great and faithful love,
answer me with your certain salvation!
Save me from the mud!
Don’t let me drown!
Let me be saved from those who hate me
and from these watery depths!
Don’t let me be swept away by the floodwaters!
Don’t let the abyss swallow me up!
Don’t let the pit close its mouth over me!
Answer me, Lord, for your faithful love is good!
Turn to me in your great compassion!
Don’t hide your face from me, your servant,
because I’m in deep trouble.
Answer me quickly!
Come close to me!
Redeem me!
Save me because of my enemies!
You know full well the insults I’ve received;
you know my shame and my disgrace.
All my adversaries are right there in front of you.
Insults have broken my heart.
I’m sick about it.
I hoped for sympathy,
but there wasn’t any;
I hoped for comforters,
but couldn’t find any.
They gave me poison for food.
To quench my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Let the table before them become a trap,
their offerings a snare.
Let their eyes grow too dim to see;
make their insides tremble constantly.
Pour out your anger on them—
let your burning fury catch them.
Let their camp be devastated;
let no one dwell in their tents.
Because they go after those you’ve already struck;
they talk about the pain of those you’ve already pierced.
Pile guilt on top of their guilt!
Don’t let them come into your righteousness!
Let them be wiped out of the scroll of life!
Let them not be recorded along with the righteous!
And me? I’m afflicted.
I’m full of pain.
Let your salvation keep me safe, God!
I will praise God’s name with song;
I will magnify him with thanks
because that is more pleasing to the Lord than an ox,
more pleasing than a young bull with full horns and hooves.
Let the afflicted see it and be glad!
You who seek God—
let your hearts beat strong again
because the Lord listens to the needy
and doesn’t despise his captives.
Let heaven and earth praise God,
the oceans too, and all that moves within them!
God will most certainly save Zion
and will rebuild Judah’s cities
so that God’s servants can live there and possess it.
The offspring of God’s servants will inherit Zion,
and those who love God’s name will dwell there.
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.
Refrain:
God, in your great and faithful love, answer me with your certain salvation!
Psalm prayer
Thirsting on the cross,
your Son shared the reproach of the oppressed
and carried the sins of all;
in him, O God, may the despairing find you,
the afflicted gain life
and the whole creation know its true king,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Old Testament reading
Genesis 22:1-18
After these events, God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!”
Abraham answered, “I’m here.”
God said, “Take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him up as an entirely burned offering there on one of the mountains that I will show you.” Abraham got up early in the morning, harnessed his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, together with his son Isaac. He split the wood for the entirely burned offering, set out, and went to the place God had described to him.
On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place at a distance. Abraham said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will walk up there, worship, and then come back to you.”
Abraham took the wood for the entirely burned offering and laid it on his son Isaac. He took the fire and the knife in his hand, and the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father?”
Abraham said, “I’m here, my son.”
Isaac said, “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the entirely burned offering?”
Abraham said, “The lamb for the entirely burned offering? God will see to it, my son.” The two of them walked on together.
They arrived at the place God had described to him. Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. But the Lord’s messenger called out to Abraham from heaven, “Abraham? Abraham?”
Abraham said, “I’m here.”
The messenger said, “Don’t stretch out your hand against the young man, and don’t do anything to him. I now know that you revere God and didn’t hold back your son, your only son, from me.” Abraham looked up and saw a single ram caught by its horns in the dense underbrush. Abraham went over, took the ram, and offered it as an entirely burned offering instead of his son. Abraham named that place “the Lord sees.” That is the reason people today say, “On this mountain the Lord is seen.”
The Lord’s messenger called out to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I give my word as the Lord that because you did this and didn’t hold back your son, your only son, I will bless you richly and I will give you countless descendants, as many as the stars in the sky and as the grains of sand on the seashore. They will conquer their enemies’ cities. 18 All the nations of the earth will be blessed because of your descendants, because you obeyed me.”
Silence may be kept.
New Testament reading
Hebrews 10:1-10
The Law is a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the real things themselves. It never can perfect the ones who are trying to draw near to God through the same sacrifices that are offered continually every year. Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered? If the people carrying out their religious duties had been completely cleansed once, no one would have been aware of sin anymore. Instead, these sacrifices are a reminder of sin every year, because it’s impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Therefore, when he comes into the world he says,
You didn’t want a sacrifice or an offering,
but you prepared a body for me;
you weren’t pleased with entirely burned offerings or a sin offering.
So then I said,
“Look, I’ve come to do your will, God.
This has been written about me in the scroll.”
He says above, You didn’t want and you weren’t pleased with a sacrifice or an offering or with entirely burned offerings or a purification offering, which are offered because the Law requires them. Then he said, Look, I’ve come to do your will. He puts an end to the first to establish the second. We have been made holy by God’s will through the offering of Jesus Christ’s body once for all.
Silence may be kept.
Gospel canticle
The Benedictus (The Song of Zechariah)
Refrain:
They placed above his head the charge against him. It read, “This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.”
Bless the Lord God of Israel
because he has come to help and has delivered his people.
He has raised up a mighty savior for us in his servant David’s house,
just as he said through the mouths of his holy prophets long ago.
He has brought salvation from our enemies
and from the power of all those who hate us.
He has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
and remembered his holy covenant,
the solemn pledge he made to our ancestor Abraham.
He has granted that we would be rescued
from the power of our enemies
so that we could serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness in God’s eyes,
for as long as we live.
You, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.
You will tell his people how to be saved
through the forgiveness of their sins.
Because of our God’s deep compassion,
the dawn from heaven will break upon us,
to give light to those who are sitting in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide us on the path of peace.”
Luke 1:68-79
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.
Refrain:
They placed above his head the charge against him. It read, “This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.”
Brief silence.
The Apostle’s Creed
Let us unite in this historic confession of the Christian faith:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
Prayers
Intercession and thanksgiving
Prayers are offered
for the day and its tasks
for the world and its needs
for the Church and her life
Response
Lord of life
In your mercy, hear us.
Silence may be kept.
Collect of the day
Almighty Father,
look with mercy on this your family
for which our Lord Jesus Christ was content to be betrayed
and given up into the hands of sinners
and to suffer death upon the cross;
who is alive and glorified with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Standing at the foot of the cross,
as our Savior taught us, so we pray
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and forever.
Amen.
Conclusion
May Christ, who bore our sins on the cross,
set us free to serve him with joy.
Amen.