Black Friday 2023

Blessed be our God forever and ever.

Amen.

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold 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 the cross, who now lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

A reading from Isaiah.

See, my servant shall prosper.

He shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.

Just as there were many who were astonished at him, so marred was his appearance beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals.

So he shall startle many nations, kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard, they shall contemplate.

Who has believed what we have heard, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by others, a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity, and as one from whom others hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him of no account.

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases, yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth, like a lamb that has led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

By a perversion of justice he was taken away.

Who could have imagined his future?

For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.

When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days.

Through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.

Out of his anguish he shall see light, he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.

The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore, I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors.

Yet he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.

The psalm appointed for this evening is Psalm 22.

We will read responsibly by the half verse.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer.

Yet you are the holy one.

From the contemplations of Israel, our forebears put their trust in you.

They cried out to you and were delivered.

But as for me, I am a worm and less than human.

All who see me laugh me to scorn.

You trusted in God for deliverance.

Yet you, O God, are the one who took me out of the womb.

I have been entrusted to you ever since I was born.

You were my heart and sister of my mind.

But not far from me, for trouble is near.

Many young bulls encircle me.

They open wide their jaws at me.

I am poured out like water, all my bones are out of joint.

My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

Packs of dogs close me in, and gangs of evildoers circle around me.

They stare and gloat over me.

Be not far away, O God.

Save me from the sword.

Save me from the lion's mouth.

I will declare your name to my people.

For you do not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty, neither do you hide your face from them.

My praise is of you in the great assembly.

I will perform in the house and transcendence of those who hear you.

The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and those who seek you shall praise you.

And your heart will be forever.

All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to you.

For yours is a royal power, O God.

To you alone, all who sleep in the earth bow down and worship.

All who will come to us fall before you.

Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering.

For he who has promised is faithful.

And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.

After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.

Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples.

So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons.

Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, Whom are you looking for?

They answered, Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus answered, I am he.

Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with him.

When Jesus said to them, I am he, they stepped back and fell to the ground.

Again he asked him, Whom are you looking for?

And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus answered, I told you that I am he, so if you are looking for me, let these men go.

This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken.

I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear.

The slave's name was Malchus.

Jesus said to Peter, put your sword back into its teeth.

Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?

So the soldiers, their officer, and the Judean police arrested Jesus and bound him.

First they took him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year.

Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Judeans that it was better to have one person die for the people.

Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus.

Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest.

But Peter was standing outside at the gate.

So the other disciple who was known to the high priest went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter in.

The woman said to Peter, You're not also one of this man's disciples, are you?

He said, I am not.

Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves.

Peter also was standing with them and warming himself.

Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching.

Jesus answered, I have spoken openly to the world.

I have also I have always taught in the synagogues and in the temple, where all the Judeans come together.

I have said nothing in secret.

Why do you ask me?

Ask those who heard what I said to them.

They know what I said.

When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, Is that how you answer the high priest?

Jesus answered, If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong.

But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?

Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.

Now Salmon Peter was standing and warming himself.

They asked him, You are not also one of his disciples, are you?

He denied it and said, I am not.

One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, asked, Did I not see you in the garden with him?

Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed.

Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate's headquarters.

It was early in the morning.

They themselves did not enter the headquarters so as not to avoid ritual so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover.

So Pilate went out to them and said, What accusation do you bring against this man?

They answered, If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.

Pilate said to them, Take them yourselves and judge him according to your law.

The Judeans replied, We are not permitted to put anyone to death.

This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, Are you the king of the Judeans?

Jesus answered, Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?

Pilate replied, I am not a Judean, am I?

Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me.

What have you done?

Jesus answered, My kingdom is not from this world.

If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Judeans.

But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.

Pollate asked him, So you are a king?

Jesus answered, You say that I am a king.

For this I was born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth.

Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.

Polate asked him, What is truth?

After he had said this, he went out to the Judeans again and told them, I find no case against him, but you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover.

Do you want me to release for you the king of the Judeans?

They shouted in reply, Not this man, but Barabbas.

Now Barabbas was abandoned.

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flocked.

And his soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe.

They kept coming up to him, saying, Hail, King of the Judeans, and striking him on the face.

Pilate went out again and said to them, Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.

So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.

Pilate said to them, Here is the man.

When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, Crucify him, crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him.

I find no case against him.

The Judeans answered him, We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.

Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever.

He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, Where are you from?

But Jesus gave him no answer.

Pilate therefore said to him, Do you refuse to speak to me?

Do you not?

Know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you.

Jesus answered him, You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.

Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.

From then on, Pilate tried to release him.

But the Judeans cried out, If you release this man, you are no friend of the emperor.

Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on a judge's bench at a place called the stone pavement, or in Hebrew, Gabbatha.

Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover, and it was about noon.

He said to the Judeans, Here is your king.

They cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.

Pilate asked them, Shall I crucify your king?

The chief priest answered, We have no king but the emperor.

Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.

So they took Jesus and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called the place of the skull, which in Hebrew is called Gogotha.

There they crucified him and with two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.

Paul also had an inscription written and put on a cross.

It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Judeans.

Many of the Judeans read this inscription because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city.

And it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.

Then the chief priest of the Judeans said to Pilate, Do not write the King of the Judeans, but this man said, I am King of the Judeans.

Pollate answered, What I have written, I have written.

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier.

They also took his tunic.

Now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top.

So they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to see who will get it.

This was to fulfill what the scripture says.

They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.

And that is what the soldiers did.

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus toward his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

When Jesus saw his mother and a disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, Woman, here is your son.

Then he said to the disciple, Here is your mother.

And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said, in order to fulfill the scripture, I am thirsty.

A jar full of sour wine was standing there.

So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hysop and held it to his mouth.

When Jesus had received the wine, he said it is finished.

Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Since it was the day of preparation, the Judeans did not want the bodies left on a cross during the Sabbath, especially because that Sabbath was a day of great solemnity.

So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed.

Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him.

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.

He who saw this has testified so that you may also believe.

His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.

These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled.

None of his bones shall be broken.

And again, another passage of scripture says, They will look on the one whom they have pierced.

After these things, Joseph the Veramathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Judeans, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus.

Pilate gave him permission, so he came and removed his body.

Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about a hundred pounds.

They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial customs of the Judeans.

Now there was a garden and a place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid.

And so because it was the Judean, the Jewish day of preparation, and a tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you a lamb of your own fold, a sheep of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Sometimes we're so saturated with the phrase Good Friday that we may not remember or realize that the earliest Christians, even until a few hundred years ago, called the day Black Friday, not Good Friday.

The day is black because at noon, well, similar like today, it was gloomy.

Darkness covered the sky.

And if we gloss over the darkness of the day, I think, well, we miss part of the holy part of the mystery through a few thoughts of the blackness of the day.

One comes back to Mary, his mother.

This is a poem by Martha Porter.

Did the woman say when she held him for the first time in the dark dank of a stable, after the pain and the bleeding and the crying, this is my body.

This is my blood.

Did the woman say when she held him for the last time?

And the dark rain on a hilltop after the pain and the bleeding and the dying, this is my body.

This is my blood.

Today is a dark day.

The loss of an only child.

Today is a black day because it reveals to us our commitment to expediency over justice.

Almost every New Testament scholar will tell you Pilate did not free any captive, but in the story, Pilate offers freedom.

There is a captive named Barabbas.

We read it in the story.

It says he's a bandit.

In Greek, he's an insurrectionist.

Barabbas is a freedom fighter.

He's committed to guerrilla warfare.

Pilate offers, will you take the freedom fighter, or will you take Jesus?

Barabbas in Aramaic means son of the father.

And the tradition is that his first name was also Jesus.

I put before you, this could very well be the choice.

Would you take Chris Kyle, American sniper?

Or would you take Mahatma Gandhi?

It's a black day because we pick the American sniper over and over again.

It's a black day.

And you heard Ken do this, it didn't agree with the reading, but we don't often realize that the Gospel of John, when it uses the word Jew, it does not mean a religious classification, it means a geographic locale.

So Ken read this correctly in Greek.

These are not the Jews, they're the people who live in the territory of Judah.

They could have been Roman, they could have been Philistine, they could have been African, they could have been Jewish.

And it is in fact a black day because this gospel passage has been leveraged against our Jewish brothers and sisters for two millennia, has assigned to our Jewish brothers and sisters what the early church called the blood curse, has leveraged this scene to indiscriminately abuse our Jewish brothers and sisters.

It is a black day.

And it is a black day because God chose to join us and to make God's self vulnerable to us.

And our decision was to kill God.

It is possible you are thinking, I would never have done it.

And when we say things like, I would never have done it, it is a darker day, I am sure no German in the 1940s was enthusiastic about going along with the Third Reich.

And they went along with it because the consequences, of course, would be terrible.

And if we say that that sort of violence and hatred is not to be found in us, the day grows darker than it already is.

No, this is not a story that happened long ago.

This is our story.

This is our story because 55 years ago on Tuesday, Martin Luther King Jr.

was killed, shot and killed.

It's a black day.

And it isn't over.

So how is it that we call the day good?

I suppose the story tells us at the end of the day that God has decided to accept us in all of our unacceptability.

That is to say, God, who is rather unlike us at times, chooses not to reject us even when we reject God's presence in our midst.

That is good to know.

There's a mysterious good in the words of Jürgen Moltmann, German theologian who wrote the book, The Crucified God.

He says that everything that the embodied Jesus does on earth is a revelation of God's eternal character.

So Moltmann writes that when Jesus dies upon the cross, this is a moment in which death enters into the Godhead.

Death will always be part of God.

Moltmann argues the goodness to be found here is that when we find our own transition from this life and into the next, whether we are at an automobile accident, in a hospital bed, alone at home.

We do not die alone.

We die inside of God.

That is to say, there is nowhere we can go where God is not.

It happens inside of God, as will the new life that is to come in two days.

But I hope as we hear the story and we return to it every year, and it is holy and mysterious, saturated both with darkness and with light.

I wonder if our opportunity isn't to hear the story and say, instead of Good Friday, maybe we could have a better Friday.

I think it would be a better Friday if Jesus Christ was incarnated among us and we decided instead of killing him to listen.

That would be a better Friday.

We return to the story to hear us at our worst, so that we can turn and do better.

We return to the story not so we can sanctify suffering, but so that we can say we can do better than this next time.

We return to this story so that we can hear somebody who had every right to be angry and furious and unforgiving say something like, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.

We return to this story so that we can pattern our lives after Him.

So that we can have perhaps even the best Friday.

Today is one, tomorrow is the other, and so there will be no celebration of the Eucharist.

But I do believe wherever you find yourself on your own Friday with your family, your friends, your co-workers, your memories, precisely on a day like this, our spirits, those parts of ourselves that are not visible to the eye, our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts are especially in need of nourishment so that we might go from a Black Friday to a better or best Friday.

And so we consecrated more than enough yesterday, so that wherever you find yourselves, in darkness or in good, or frankly on the road to better, you might be nourished.

So that when we leave here, we might make for the best Friday possible.

I would that that were true.

God would that that were true.

And the only way that becomes true, I think, is when we approach this day not with shame or with guilt, but with gratitude and with grief and with a commitment that along the way, wherever we find ourselves and whatever mob we are in, we might say to one another, let's not make this a good Friday.

For the love of God, let's make it a better one.

Dear people of God, our Heavenly Father sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved, that all who believe in him might be delivered from the power of sin and death and become heirs with him of everlasting life.

We pray therefore for people everywhere according to their needs.

Let us pray for the Holy Catholic Church of Christ throughout the world, for its unity and witness and service, for all bishops and other ministers and the people whom they serve.

For Andy, Hector, Jeff, Kay, and Scott, our bishops, and all the people of this diocese, for all Christians in this community, that God would confirm the church in faith, increase it in love, and preserve it in peace.

Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified.

Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Let us pray for all nations and peoples of the earth and for those in authority among them, for Joe, the President of the United States, for the Congress and the Supreme Court, for the members and representatives of the United Nations, remembering especially this year both Ukraine and Russia, for all who serve the common good, that by God's help they may seek justice and truth, and live into peace and concord.

Almighty God, kindle we pray, in every heart the true love of peace, and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth, that in tranquility your dominion may increase until the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Let us pray for the Jewish people who possess an eternal covenant with the Lord, who delivered them from bondage of freedom, for continued faithfulness to God's covenant with them, for their flourishing in peace as witnesses to God's sustaining love, for safety from all malice and harm for the fullness of redemption for the sake of God's name.

That unity and concord may exist between Jews and Christians in obedience to God's will.

O God of Abraham, you planted your people Israel as the root and grafted Gentiles as wild branches into a single olive tree of praise to you.

As we come near to the cross, we lament Christian acts of prejudice and violence against your faithful people of whom Jesus Christ was born.

Bless the children of your covenant, so that together we may attain the fullness of your blessing for the world.

Amen.

Let us pray for all who suffer and are afflicted in body or in mind, for those who are hungry and homeless, destitute and oppressed, for those who are ill or disabled in body, mind, or spirit, for those in loneliness, fear and anguish, for those who face temptation, doubt and despair, for those who are sorrowful and bereaved, for those who are persecuted for the sake of Christ, for prisoners, refugees and captives, for victims of war, genocide and trafficking, and for those in mortal danger.

That God in mercy will comfort and relieve them.

And grant them the knowledge of God's love and stir in us the will and patience to minister to their needs.

Gracious God, the comfort for all who sorrow, the strength of all who suffer.

Let the cry of those in misery and need come to you, that they may find your mercy present with them in all their afflictions.

And give us, we pray, the strength to serve them for the sake of him who suffered for us, your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Let us pray for those who have not embraced God's redemptive love, for those who have never heard the word of salvation, for those who have lost their faith, for those hardened by sin and indifference, for the contemptuous and the scornful, for those who are persecutors of his disciples, for those who in the name of Christ have persecuted others, that God will open their hearts to the truth and lend them to faith and obedience.

Merciful God, the source of life and fountain of mercy, let the gospel of your Son, Jesus Christ, be preached with grace and love.

Turn the hearts of the followers of Jesus who have harmed others in his name.

Lead all to repentance and amendment of life and sustain by your loving grace all who lift their eyes to you.

Amen.

Let us commit ourselves to our God and pray for the grace of a holy life that with all who have departed this world and have died in the peace of Christ, and those whose faith is known to God alone, we may be accounted worthy to enter into the fullness of joy of our Lord and receive the crown of life in the day of resurrection.

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light, look favorably on your whole church, that wonderful and sacred mystery, by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation.

Let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things that had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through all things were made.

Your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Praise and glorify your holy resurrection.

For by virtue of your cross, glory has come to the whole world.

May God be merciful to us and bless us.

Show us the light of your countenance and come to us.

Let your ways be come upon earth.

Your safety help among all nations.

Let the people praise you, O God.

Let all the peoples praise you.

We glory to your cross, O Lord.

And praise and glorify your holy resurrection.

For by virtue of your cross, joy has come to the whole world.

Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.

Gracious God, our sins are too heavy to carry, too real to hide, and too deep to undo.

Forgive what our lips tremble to name, when our hearts can no longer bear, and what has become for us a consuming fire of judgment.

Set us free from a past that we cannot change.

Open to us a future in which we can be changed, and grant us grace to grow more and more in your likeness and image through Jesus Christ, the light of the world.

Amen.

The Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sin, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

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 and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

I invite you to be nourished at the rail, kneeling or standing, as your piety or your knees dictate.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, we pray you to set your passion, cross, and death between your judgment and our souls, now and in the hour of our death.

Give mercy and grace to the living, pardon and rest to the dead.

To your holy church, peace and concord, and to us sinners, everlasting life and glory.

For with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and forever.

Amen.