A Prayer For Good Friday

A Prayer for Good Friday

The Friday before Easter

O Lord, we come to You on this day

To remember You—

You, who hung each star in the sky

And, too, hung upon the cross.

O Lord, we grieve and lament

And repent of the ways we have shouted,

“Crucify Him!”

With our actions and our words

And our sins of omission and silence.

Christ, have mercy on us.

O Lord, we want to skip ahead

To Your resurrection,

For it is painful

To remember Your pain—

The torture,

The death at the hands of people in power,

The sacrifice of Your great love.

We want to turn away.

We want the storybook ending

Without any of the sorrows.

And yet it is because of Your power

And Your suffering

That we are able to dwell in a faith

Big enough to hold all the pain of the world.

And we can sit in the tension

Of now and not yet.

Lord, we thank You for a love that is bigger

And truer than any fairy tale,

A love that bore a violent death

So that we may truly live

And be free from the shackles of violence

And the snare of power.

O Lord, our lives are marked with suffering,

And we do our children no favors

To present the idea that grief does not exist.

We ask You to help us

On this Friday

To create a sacred space,

To show them that You,

King of heaven and earth,

Took on our pain.

And even though You were betrayed,

Mocked, maligned, mistreated,

And even murdered,

You humbled Yourself to death on a cross

So that we would know life.

O Lord, we remember Your

Trial and torture.

We pray that our children

Would know Your way of love—

A love that makes a way

For all people,

That takes up the cross.

May they know a way that chooses mercy

When faced with an enemy,

A way that chooses

Sacrifice instead of comfort,

A way that chooses

Healing instead of violence,

A way that chooses

Loud love instead of hidden hate,

A way that opens their hearts

Instead of closes them shut.

O God, we ask You to hold our family

As we try to fathom love

That sacrificed on our behalf,

Willing to be betrayed

And suffer death on a cross.

Still our hearts.

Let us cry as we begin to feel

The weight of this truth.

We weep for the ways violence

Still happens in our world,

And we pray for all to know

The deep and abiding love of Jesus Christ.

We wait in the darkness.

Be with us in the darkness,

O Light of the world.

John 19:1-37; John 3:16-17; Isaiah 53:4-5; Philippians 2:7-8; Genesis 22:1-18; Psalm 22:1-2, 9-11