Good Friday - Killing the Song - order of service, songs, readings, message

For Good Friday this year, we built the service around Peter's speech in Acts 3 where he uses the phrase, "you killed the Author of Life." Based on that picture, we themed the service around the notion of Killing the Song of Light and Life.

What follows is the order of service that we developed for our service. I've included a selection of the readings and songs after the order of service. Hymn numbers refer to Sing to the Lord published by Lillenas.

The Song of Light and Life
The Song of Creation (Excerpt from “The Magician’s Nephew”)
Introit Song “Lord of the Dance” (vv. 1-2 only)
Opening Words - John 1:1-5, 10-14
#214 (Praise the One Who Breaks the Darkness) (vv. 1-2 only)

The Song is Betrayed and Arrested
John 18:1-14
#245 What Wondrous Love is This (vv. 1-2 only)

The Song is Denied
John 18:15-27
Song of Confession - “Lord Have Mercy” (vv. 1-2) - Duet

The Song is Accused
Isaiah 53:1-8
John 18:28-40

The Song is Condemned
#249 O Sacred Head Now Wounded (vv. 1-2 only)
John 19:1-15

The Song is Killed
Psalm 22:1-18
Song of Contemplation - When I Survey (Piano Solo)
John 19:16-30
Meditation (including Acts 3:13-15a)

The Song is Buried
John 19:31-42

(The text in the bulletin invited congregants to remain in silence and contemplate the mystery of the cross, and then to depart in silence.)

Should you use this service, you would be want to choose hymns appropriate to your setting, and the special music you have available might be different. We felt that "Lord Have Mercy" was a very good song to follow the narrative of Peter's denials. We intentionally did not have any music at the end of the service, as we had "killed the Song." We had one reader do all of the John readings (as a narrator), and had two other readers for the Isaiah and Psalm reading. The strength of this service rests heavily on the ability of your readers--as this service is very "Scripture-reading-intensive."

Here are some of the other elements that we used:

The Song of Creation - Excerpted from The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it....

The eastern sky changed from white to pink and from pink to gold. The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and the most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose.

Digory had never seen such a sun. The sun above the ruins of Charn had looked older than ours: this looked younger. You could imagine that it laughed for joy as it came up. And as its beams shot across the land the travelers could see for the first time what sort of place they were in. It was a valley through which a broad, swift river wound its way, flowing eastward toward the sun. Southward there were mountains, northward there were lower hills. But it was a valley of mere earth, rock and water; there was not a tree, not a bush, not a blade of grass to be seen. The earth was of many colors; they were fresh, hot and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else.

It was a Lion. Huge, shaggy, and bright, it stood facing the risen sun. Its mouth was wide open in song…

Polly was finding the song more and more interesting because she thought she was beginning to see the connection between the music and the things that were happening. When a line of dark firs sprang up on a ridge about a hundred yards away she felt that they were connected with a series of deep, prolonged notes which the Lion had sung a second before. And when he burst into a rapid series of lighter notes she was not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in every direction. Thus, with an unspeakable thrill, she felt quite certain that all the things were coming… “out of the Lion’s head.” When you listened to his song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked round you, you saw them.

The Lord of the Dance
Written by Sydney Carter in 1963, "Lord of the Dance" is based upon the "Simple Gifts" tune that Copeland included in "Appalachian Springs." It tells the Divine Narrative, including creation, incarnation, life & ministry, death, and resurrection. We used the first two verses at the beginning of this service, as they specifically deal with creation and incarnation, and would connect the Lewis reading with the Prologue of John. You can find more information about "Lord of the Dance" and order sheet music here.

Meditation - by Rev. Jonathan Twitchell
You can download the message here. It's about 12 minutes long, recorded in high quality mono.

Or, if you prefer to read it, here is the manuscript:

In human terms, the narrative that we have heard tonight is absolutely absurd. Ridiculous. Impossible.

When you heard the Prologue of John tonight, you may have been perplexed or surprised. Not because the words are unfamiliar, (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”), but because we are unaccustomed to hearing these words outside their traditional context of Advent and Christmas. To hear these words read together with the violent words of John 18 and 19 makes us uncomfortable. We’d rather separate these two sections of John’s Gospel—keeping Chapter 1 safely within our Christmas liturgies, and Chapters 12 through 20 for use during Holy Week. It offends our sensibilities to combine these passages in one dramatic reading, and yet that is precisely what the Evangelist did—for all of the passages we have heard tonight are part of the complete Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.

What is it that makes us uncomfortable about hearing John 1 juxtaposed against John 18 and 19? It is this fact—Jesus is the Light of the World. And Good Friday reminds us that for three awful days we were able to snuff out that light.

We could get into a great theological discussion tonight about what happened to Jesus between His death on Friday and His resurrection on Sunday. We could delve into the history of the creeds, particularly those versions that state that “Jesus descended into Hades.” Did He in fact descend to Hades? Did He preach to the dead or set captives free? Or, did He somehow further suffer for the sins of the world?

I’m not sure we could really assert with any sense of dogma any one of those theories. At best, Scripture only alludes to what may have happened with Jesus during those dark days. And at worst, as some scholars maintain, those so-called ‘allusions’ are speaking about something different altogether, and Scripture remains silent on the matter of what happened to Jesus at His death.

But this much we can be certain of. Jesus was really dead.

Period.

No ifs. No ands. No buts.

He died and was buried in a tomb. The Light of the world was extinguished.

I want you to consider that thought this evening. What does it mean to say that mere mortals snuffed out the Light of the world?

Or put another way, imagine a tranquil scene at the ocean, where a painter sits with his easel, carefully applying paint from his palette to the canvas in front of him. He is painting the blue sky, the waves breaking in on the rocks, and the birds circling the lobster boat in the distance. As he nears the completion of this great masterpiece, the paint rebels, squeezes itself out of the tubes, off the canvas, and proceeds to drown the artist in his own paint. The paint kills the painter.

Or, imagine if you went to the Symphony, and enjoyed the awe-inspiring music as the musicians breathed life into their instruments, giving them the song. As they reached the climactic moment of the concert, the instruments decided that they no longer wanted to be played by this group of musicians, and they took the life that had been given them and proceeded to clobber and beat the musicians and conductor to death. By doing so, they kill not only the musicians, but they destroy their own song.

Examples abound. Imagine words jumping off the page and murdering the writer. Imagine actors in a play refusing to perform the way the playwright intended—and carrying him by force out of the theater where they hang him on the marquee as an example to other playwrights who want their work performed the way it was written. Imagine stained glass in a window jumping out of its leading, and stabbing the artisan.

That’s the great mystery of Good Friday, that we struggle to understand. The great paradox of the Gospel is that Jesus was light and life—and we killed Him. He was there at the foundation of the earth, and we killed Him. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. From Him and to Him and through Him are all things. And yet, the creation rebelled and killed the Creator.

In Philippians it says that Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross. Jesus, the Word of God, the Light of the World, became obedient, not only to the Father, but He also subjected Himself to the creation that wished to destroy Him.

To use John’s words, the light shined in the darkness, but the darkness did not understand it. Though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him…His own did not receive Him. Instead, they killed the author of life.

That’s what Peter is recorded as saying in our New Testament lesson today, found in Acts chapter 3. He and John had just healed the crippled beggar at the temple gate, and a crowd of onlookers had gathered around in astonishment that they had been able to perform such a miraculous feat:

When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Men of Israel, why does this surprise
you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this
man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has
glorified His servant Jesus. You handed Him over to be killed, and you disowned
Him before Pilate, though he had decided to let Him go. You disowned the Holy
and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the
author of life…

Let us never forget that while you and I may not have stood in that crowd 2000 years ago that shouted “Crucify Him,” it was as though our sins nailed Him to the tree. We bear as much responsibility for the death of Jesus as did Pilate, Annas, Caiaphas, or even Judas. “Their hearts are not as black as we might suppose, and ours are not as white as we might like to believe.”

Paul tells us that “All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.” In other words, we are just like the shards of stained glass attacking the artisan. We are like the paint trying to drown the painter. We are like words that kill the author, actors who lynch the playwright. We are like the instruments who kill the very musicians that breathe life into them. For we have sinned. We have rebelled. We have betrayed, denied, and abandoned the Christ.

In short, we have killed the song, and chose to sing our own song instead. We have preferred our own ways of selfish living, materialism, pride, racism, and greed. We have indulged in our own lusts instead of serving the world around us. We have built our own castles and kingdoms at the expense of the Kingdom of God. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. We have jumped off the stage of the Divine Narrative, and chosen to sing our own song and write our own play.

We have killed the author of life.

And yet, the story does not end there with complete and total desperation. You will hear the conclusion to the cross and the grave on Sunday morning, but I want you to hear again the important conclusion to our lesson from John chapter one.

For there is still a glimmer of hope on this night of darkness. There is still hope for you and for me. For right after John writes, “He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him,” the Evangelist also writes these words—“But…to those who did receive Him, to those who believed in His Name…He gave the right to become Children of God.”

Yes. You may have killed the song. You may have murdered the very author of life. You may have jumped off the stage of the Divine Narrative and started writing your own script. But the story doesn’t have to end there. You are still invited to repent and receive Him—to believe on His Name—and to become a child of God.

On Palm Sunday, I read this quote from Henri Nouwen, which I’d like to leave you with tonight:

Jesus went to Jerusalem to announce the Good News to the people of that city. And Jesus knew that He was going to put a choice before them: Will you be my disciple, or will you be my executioner? There is no middle ground here. Jesus went to Jerusalem to put people in a situation where they had to say yes or no. That is the great drama of Jesus’ passion: He had to wait upon how people were going to respond.

How will you respond to Jesus?
How will you respond to Jesus?


Grace and Peace,

PastorJon