storytelling part 2: good friday

I went AWOL from blogging for a few weeks because I was caught up in preparing for the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services at my church and working on the Easter exhibit and installation.  I think I'm mostly recovered from Holy Week and I've started writing again.  You may have noticed that I didn't quite get to the 40 entries that my 'writing for Lent' post suggested.  Oops.

Anyway, I'll include some of the introductory and concluding remarks that I made for the Good Friday service here to bookend my previous introduction to Lent.  You can hear the whole service online here.  It's rather long but it's worth a listen, and you can tell a bit about what the service entails from my intro:

Welcome:

Welcome Hope Chapel, welcome Christ Church, welcome guests, welcome brothers and sisters in Christ.

Let’s pray.

Father, we acknowledge and welcome your presence here among this, your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon a cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. 

Bless our speakers this evening with courage and comfort as they generously share their stories with us.  Grant us open hearts to receive your word and your work in our lives.  Give us eyes to see and ears to hear.  In Jesus name we pray.  Amen.

Our story and God’s story

Each year as we walk through the seasons of the church, from Advent to Christmas, through Lent to Easter and on to Pentecost, we re-tell the story of God’s work for us. 

Moses told the Israelites to ‘remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery . . .’ (Exodus 13:3)

Jesus told his disciples at the Last supper ‘. . . do this in remembrance of me’ (Luke 22:19).

We need to hear the story of God’s grace in our lives over and over and over again.  I need to hear the story of God’s grace in my life over and over again.

But God’s story is new to us each time we hear it because we’ve lived through another year, found new trials and new joys, and because the story is so rich we can hear it many times over a lifetime while always discovering new and beautiful things in it.

On Good Friday, we come to the second-to-last chapter of the story, the execution of our Lord, Jesus Christ, on the cross.  It’s not the last chapter where we find out if everything turns out ok (or not), it’s the second-to-last chapter:

- It’s like the moment when Odysseus finally arrives home after 20 years but he’s lost his ship and all his men and his home has been taken over by suitors who, believing him dead, want to marry his wife. 

- It’s like the moment when Frodo finally makes it to the side of Mount Doom, but he can’t muster the energy to go on, the battle outside the gates of Mordor is going badly, and Gollum is lurking behind a rock waiting to attack.

- Or it’s like the moment when it looks like Wile E. Coyote’s Acme Catapult will finally help him catch his prey and he can have the roasted Roadrunner dinner he’s always dreamed of.

It’s the darkest moment, right before the end of the story.

As we’ve done for the past eight years for our Good Friday service here at Hope, we gather together to hear seven of our friends use the ‘Seven Last Words of Jesus from the Cross’ as a starting point to share their own struggles with us.  We hear these very personal and often difficult stories and connect them with our own lives and with God’s story.  And just like the struggles of Jesus on the cross, we know that our struggles are not the end of the story.

This year we are honored to have two members of Christ Church participating in this service with us and look forward to what God has in store for these two communities together. 

Our Good Friday service has a very simple structure.  It follows a pattern of a song, then a personal reflection, then a moment of silence.  This pattern happens seven times, once for each of the sayings of Jesus from the cross.  We’ll go straight through the service from song to reflection to silence without comment or introduction. 

As many of you know, David Taylor initiated this service and has managed and introduced it for the past eight years.  I’ve always been amazed at the depth of this service and am truly grateful for all the vision and work he’s put into this service over the years.

And because I’m taking over for David here, I feel compelled to end with a list.  So here’s my list:

Why is it important for us to tell these stories of our struggles to one another?  I’ll give you three reasons:

1. The first reason it’s important to tell these stories is so that we all know that we are not alone.

We all struggle.  I’m sure most of you will find that one or more of our speakers stories echoes your own story.

2.  The second reason it’s important to tell these stories is so that, again, we all know that we are not alone.

We can comfort one another because we understand each other’s struggles – we’ve been there too.

3. The third reason it’s important to tell these stories is so that, yet again, we all know that we are not alone.

Our God suffered tremendously for us, He understands our struggles from personal experience, and is there with us in them.

Let’s begin.

(seven verses, seven speakers, seven songs)

Conclusion:

To be vulnerable is to risk being hurt.  It’s to offer more of ourselves to others than we normally would, and it can be answered with judgment or rejection, but not here, not with us.  We share in each other’ struggles, mourning with those who mourn, rejoicing with those who rejoice. 

Each speaker is in a different place in his or her struggle.  Some have already found healing, for some their struggles are lifelong, and others remain in the wilderness, feeling forsaken.  And Jesus felt all those things as he walked through his struggle. 

Comfort

One of tonight’s speakers directed me to 2 Corinthians 1:3-7:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.

You can hear in Paul’s words how tangled up in our lives are affliction and consolation, suffering and comfort.  Each of our struggles puts us in a place to comfort others who suffer.

We are not promised a life without suffering, but we do have others to join us in our struggles and a God that is by our side in them.  We also know that it’s not the end of the story.

We’ll conclude the service in silence.  The speakers will remove the veils from the panels on the wall and lay them at the foot of the cross.  We’ll end in darkness.  When the lights are off, you may remain to pray and meditate or you may leave quietly.  We do ask that you refrain from talking until you are completely out of the building. 

Could the speakers come forward to remove the veils?