A Service of Reflection for Good Friday.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Let us be silent…
let us be still…
empty…
in Jesus’ presence…
saying nothing…
being silent…
being still.
GREETING
Come, let us turn again to the living God,
the God whose love sears and refines us.
For you have torn us and you will heal us,
you have stricken us and you will bind us up.
After two days you will revive us:
On the third day you will raise us up.
Let us know you, let us press on to know you:
your going forth is as sure as the dawn.
You will come to us as the showers,
As the spring rains that water the earth.
What will you do with us, your fickle people?
What will you do with us, who have turned away?
Our love is like the morning mist,
like the dew that vanishes in the sun.
You have hewn us by your prophets,
you have laid us low by the words of your mouth.
For you do not desire rituals of anxious pleading,
nor the bargainings of desperate petition.
It is steadfast love that is your heart’s desire,
intimate knowledge of your compassion and justice.
Silence is kept.
PSALM 22
Silence
All Silent God, we bring the cries of our battered hearts,
the cries of those burdened by illness, the cries of those
bowed down by the weight of oppression.
We bring them so that we may not be silent…
Hear us in the name of Jesus, forsaken on a cross.
Listening
An act of remembrance of the participants in the Passion
Silence
Canticle
Minister Praise to the mysterious God,
whose heart bears the pain of creating,
pressing through the points of anguish and death.
Praise to the pioneer who showed us the way,
calling us to join in the greatest of stories,
to follow and embrace the path of true love.
God-revealing Christ, no guile was found on your lips.
When you were reviled you did not give back in due measure.
When you suffered, you did not threaten revenge.
In the justice of God you put all your trust.
You carried our disease in your body to the tree,
that in your wounds our sin might shrivel and die.
We contemplate you in awe and wonder
we ponder the cost of the burden of glory.
We have erred and strayed from your ways:
call us again to the place of our healing,
All to the solid strength of the vulnerable,
to the guardian of our truest selves.
THE PRAYERS
PRAYING IN CHRIST
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come; thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
THE DISMISSAL
Tender God,
you have seen our affliction
and unbound our eyes;
you have bereaved us of the burdens
to which we used to cling;
you have woven our pain
into patterns of integrity;
the wounds that we have cherished
you have turned into worship,
and the scars we have kept hidden
into marks of truth.
You have touched us gently;
we have seen your face, and we live.
Go in the peace of Christ.
All Thanks be to God.
St Ternans Banchory 