Lenten Journey

One: Through challenges and uncertainties, the people of God travelled not matter how uncertain it was they never abandoned their goal.

Prayer of Approach.

One: Lord here are prayer

All: Meet us, Loving God, at the place of the skull, when we had hoped for a peaceful garden. Meet us in our defeats, when we had hoped for victory. Meet us in our temptation, when we had hoped for clear and easy decisions. Meet us here, O God, in this healing moment, for we need you now. The coldness of spring holds us and we are frozen in this time of isolation. Each passing news cast seems to bring new fear and dread, anger and frustration.  May we come together across time and space in this time to know that Christ now todays takes on our burdens and will bear a cross so that we may have hope.  For even now in this most darkest moment there is hope. 

    Words echo my blood shed for you my body broken for you.   

Hand forged, hand cut and the cruel shaped spikes of humanity’s ambition, its greed its fear  biting into the flesh of salvation.

Arms forced back. Stretched chest muscles numb to the strain. Pain numbed by pain,  breathing laboured a thirst bitter wine.   

Oh God you are bleeding Oh God you are dying, oh God you are dead.

When Jesus wept the falling tears, in mercy flowed beyond all bounds. When Jesus groaned a trembling fear seized all the world.  Father into your hands I commit my spirit.

“It is finished.”  A long ending breath.   Darkness consumes the light and all of creation stops in its course for in that moment it felt as if the very earth stopped its rotation,  A mother’s mournful eyes. 

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

      Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,

(There they alike in trembling hope repose)

      The bosom of his Father and his God.

God’s melancholy, God’s great sorrow God the father’s pain rends the temple curtain torn as to make holy grave clothes for his son. 

A borrowed grave, a stone set , salvations seal.   

A tired hand and strained eyes set down the words. Our words, for they are the words of our story. 

All the pain that we hold, the pain of how we have been wronged, how we have wronged someone else is taken on in this torture to frail human flesh. 

In that moment when in a last breath, Father into your hands I commit my spirit. God enfolded Christ onto himself. Hands of creation holding a broken vessel of hope.    I wonder if in that moment in the tears of the Father if God asked Jesus for his forgiveness for what he required of him.  I wonder if in that moment when the soul gasps its first breath of new life Christ said. All is forgiven.   

When God was one if us. 

We cannot come to Easter without today.

Today thorns, nails  stone become symbols our own deathly hallows reminding us who is the true master of death. 

For in our darkest hour when we too are faced with road we would not travel. We may because of this day. We can  claim as given to us in the words of the saint

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind this today to me forever We bind unto us today and forever the saving grace of the cross, for Christ this day this hour takes on our pain and our sins.  So that we might say in life in death in life beyond death we are not alone.   

 Prayer

 All: God of the darkening road , Into the garden they went to Pray. Jesus looked up and offered to God all his fears all his burdens.  What shall we offer up to you God, whose names shall we hold up you God? We pray  For healing, for wholeness, for new life hear our prayer.  In sickness, in death be near, hear our prayer, O God.

Lord, save us take pity, light in our darkness.  We call you, we wait: be near, hear our prayer, O God. Lord we name our fears our anxiety, our anger, our solitude be near us God and surround us with your arms as you did Jesus this day.   Amen 

One: So there it is, the ugly shape of beautiful wood, rough hewn by human hands

All Lord Where are you Now?

One: And there it is a tight-shut tomb, a borrowed grave, sealed with stone and silence.

All Lord Where are you Now?

One: And there it is, your broken body, shrouded in linen, clothed in darkness.

All Lord Where are you Now?

One: And somewhere stand your people, crying though tired of crying, their eyes sore and bloodshot. They will not sleep tonight

All Lord Where are you Now?

One And out in the streets the children have stopped their playing, the sound of music has gone sour, even the unlikely people fidget and wonder

All Lord Where are you Now?

One And here are we, saying “if only” murmuring “surely not” counting the cost for once of our carelessness and our loveless ness and our sin. Trying so vainly to gain all, we’ve bartered you away in the transaction. In the midst of cream eggs, chocolate bunnies, and plush toys We have lost the one who found us.

All Lord Where are you Now?

One With all the Saints of all time we wait, for only you can tell whether we are worth rising for.

One: Now is the hour and there is darkness over the whole of the earth. And He cried to heaven. Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.

One: And having said this he breathed his last. Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he raised his eyes to heaven and said.

All: Certainly this man was innocent.

This is what it is  When we survey the Wondrous Cross

One: We who have been baptized into Christ now die with him this day we have been buried with him. As Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, so we too might walk in newness of life.   Amen....Amen....Amen