Good Friday Urban Stations of the Cross Digital Service

Blessed Good Friday, community. Today is usually a day that our community gathers to take to the streets and worship together with song, prayer, and the breaking of bread. While we cannot be together this year, we hope you’ll enjoy this digital version of our Urban Stations of the Cross service. It includes meditations, songs, prayers, images of our vibrant community, and a video message from Pastor Holly.

As a part of your Good Friday reflection today we hope you’ll read and listen along, holding us in prayer.

Here is a link that will allow you to view the service online

Here is a downloadable PDF version

Good Friday, April 10th

By: Holly Reimer
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Reflection—v. 3 ‘He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity’

This is probably one of my favorite days of Holy Week because it honors the suffering that Jesus experienced as well as the pain that we also experience. Pain and suffering are real. Jesus experienced the physical and emotional vulnerabilities associated with being human. His body was susceptible to thirst on the cross, and he felt the pain of sharp objects piercing his flesh. Jesus also experienced the hurt of being rejected by folks who never really saw him as valuable. His disciples fell asleep on him and denied him as he was being questioned by the authorities. He died the dehumanizing death of a criminal. We too feel alone, isolated, and rejected throughout our lives and in moments and seasons of suffering. In our pain we ask questions similar to the Pharisees and High Priests, ‘Why would you let this happen God?’ As this passage intimates, suffering isn’t simply a physical loss–it can be when we feel alone and isolated, it is when we’re struggling with the loss or changing of relationships, it can be a change in our health and the realization that we don’t have what we need in order to recover. It can be heartbreaking, and that is okay. Let us not feel like we must move too quickly from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, because the pain is real.

Prayer Lord, may we find space for suffering and companions willing to journey with us.