SPEAKER_01: Reading from Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: See, my servant shall prosper, and he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.
SPEAKER_01: Just as there were many who were astonished at him, so marred was he in his appearance beyond human assembly, and his form beyond that of the mortals.
SPEAKER_01: So he shall startle many nations, and he shall shut their mouths because of him.
SPEAKER_01: For that which had not been told them, they shall see, and that which they had not heard, they shall find.
SPEAKER_01: He had no form of majesty that we should look at him, nothing inherent that we should desire him.
SPEAKER_01: He was despised and rejected by others, a man suffering and acquainted with infirmity, and as the one from whom all others hide our faces, he was despised.
SPEAKER_01: And we held him in no account.
SPEAKER_01: Surely we have borne our infirmities and carried our diseases.
SPEAKER_01: Yet we accounted him as tricky, struck down by God and lifted.
SPEAKER_01: And he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.
SPEAKER_01: Upon him was the punishment that made us whole.
SPEAKER_01: And by his bruises we are all evil.
SPEAKER_01: All we, like sheep, have gone astray.
SPEAKER_01: We have turned our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
SPEAKER_01: He was oppressed, and he was afflicted.
SPEAKER_01: Yet he did not open his mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before a shiver is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
SPEAKER_01: By a reversion of justice, he was taken away.
SPEAKER_01: Who could have imagined it?
SPEAKER_01: For he was cut off from the land of the living, driven for the transgressions of my land.
SPEAKER_01: They made his grave with the wicked with the rich.
SPEAKER_01: Although he had done no Bible, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
SPEAKER_01: Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.
SPEAKER_01: When you make his life an offering of him, he shall see the offering and shall prolong his day.
unknown: Through him the will of the Lord shall offer.
SPEAKER_01: And he shall bear their iniquity.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore I will alight him a fortune with the great, and he shall abide the spoil with the strong.
SPEAKER_01: Because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors, and he poured the sinner and intercession for the transgressors.
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer.
SPEAKER_01: I may answer, and I cry.
unknown: Yet you are the holy one.
SPEAKER_01: Our forbearers put their trust in you.
SPEAKER_01: They trusted in you.
SPEAKER_01: They cried out to you and were delivered.
SPEAKER_01: They trusted in you.
SPEAKER_01: But as for me, I am a worm and less than human.
SPEAKER_01: All who see me laugh needs for you trusted in God for deliverance.
SPEAKER_01: Yet you, O God, are the one who took me out of the womb.
unknown: I have been entrusted to you ever since I was born.
SPEAKER_01: Be not far from me, for trouble is near.
SPEAKER_01: Many young wolves encircle me.
SPEAKER_01: They open wide their jaws at me.
SPEAKER_01: I am poured out like water.
SPEAKER_01: All my bones are out of joint.
SPEAKER_01: My mouth is dried out like a finger turbine.
SPEAKER_01: My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
SPEAKER_01: As the dog closes on me, and gang people do a circle round me.
unknown: They stare and gloat over me.
unknown: Be not far away, O God.
SPEAKER_01: Save me from the sword, the lion.
SPEAKER_01: Save me from the lion's mouth.
SPEAKER_01: I will declare your name to my people.
SPEAKER_01: May all who fear you, O God, with praise.
SPEAKER_01: For you do not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty.
SPEAKER_01: Neither do you hide your face from them.
SPEAKER_01: But when they hear you, my praise is of you in the great assembly.
SPEAKER_01: I will abortion.
SPEAKER_01: The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and those who seek you shall praise you.
SPEAKER_01: All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to you.
SPEAKER_01: For yours is the royal power of God.
SPEAKER_01: You alone, all who sleep in the earth, bow down and worship.
SPEAKER_01: My soul shall live for you, my descendants shall serve you.
SPEAKER_00: Says the Lord, I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit also adds, I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.
SPEAKER_00: For there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
SPEAKER_00: Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering.
SPEAKER_00: For he has promised He who has promised is faithful.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: For all the more that you see the day approaching.
SPEAKER_00: The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_03: 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.
SPEAKER_03: Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked, Whom are you looking for?
SPEAKER_03: And they answered, Jesus of Nazareth.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus replied, I am he.
SPEAKER_03: Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them.
SPEAKER_03: When Jesus said to them, I am he, they stepped back and fell to the ground.
SPEAKER_03: Again he asked them, Whom are you looking for?
SPEAKER_03: And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus answered, I told you that I am he, so if you are looking for me, let these men go.
SPEAKER_03: This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken.
SPEAKER_03: I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.
SPEAKER_03: Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear.
SPEAKER_03: The slave's name was Malchus.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus said to Peter, Put your sword back into its teeth.
SPEAKER_03: I am not to drink that cup.
SPEAKER_03: Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?
SPEAKER_03: So the soldiers, their officers, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him.
SPEAKER_03: First they took him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Sephas, the high priest that year.
SPEAKER_03: Siphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people.
SPEAKER_03: Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest.
SPEAKER_03: But Peter was standing outside at the gate.
SPEAKER_03: 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.
SPEAKER_03: The woman said to Peter, You are not also one of this man's disciples, are you?
SPEAKER_03: He said, I am not.
SPEAKER_03: Now the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around it and warming themselves.
SPEAKER_03: Peter was also standing with them and warming himself.
SPEAKER_03: Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching.
SPEAKER_03: Jesus answered, I have spoken openly to the world.
SPEAKER_03: I've always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together.
SPEAKER_03: I have said nothing in secret.
SPEAKER_03: Why do you ask me?
SPEAKER_03: Ask those who heard what I said to them.
SPEAKER_03: They know what I said.
SPEAKER_03: 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?
SPEAKER_03: Jesus answered, If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong, but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?
SPEAKER_03: Then Anna sent him bound to Cephas, the high priest.
SPEAKER_03: Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself, and they asked him, You are not also one of his disciples, are you?
SPEAKER_03: He denied it and said, I am not.
SPEAKER_03: 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?
SPEAKER_03: Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock rode.
SPEAKER_03: Then they took Jesus from Sephas to Pilate's headquarters.
SPEAKER_03: It was early in the morning.
SPEAKER_03: They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover.
SPEAKER_03: So Pilate went out to them and said, What accusation do you bring against this man?
SPEAKER_03: And they answered, If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate said to them, Take him yourself and judge him according to your law.
SPEAKER_03: The Jews replied, We are not permitted to put anyone to death.
SPEAKER_03: This was to fulfill what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he was to die.
SPEAKER_03: Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, Are you the king of the Jews?
SPEAKER_03: Jesus answered, Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?
SPEAKER_03: Pilate replied, I am not a Jew, am I?
SPEAKER_03: Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me.
SPEAKER_03: What have you done?
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus answered, My kingdom is not from this world.
SPEAKER_03: If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.
SPEAKER_03: But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate asked him, So you are a king?
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus answered, You say that I am a king.
SPEAKER_03: For this I was born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth.
SPEAKER_03: Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate asked him, What is truth?
SPEAKER_03: After he had said this, he went out to the Jews again and told them, I find no case against him, but you have a custom that I release someone for you at Passover.
SPEAKER_03: And do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews?
SPEAKER_03: They shouted in reply, Not to this man, but Barabbas.
SPEAKER_03: Now Barabbas was abandoned.
SPEAKER_03: Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.
SPEAKER_03: And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe.
SPEAKER_03: They kept coming up to him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and striking him on the face.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate went out again and said to him, Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no case against him.
SPEAKER_03: So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate said to them, Here is the man.
SPEAKER_03: When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, Crucify him, crucify him.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate said to them, Take him yourself and crucify him.
SPEAKER_03: I find no case against him.
SPEAKER_03: The Jews 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.
SPEAKER_03: Now when Pilate heard this, he was more afraid than ever.
SPEAKER_03: He entered his headquarters again and asked Jesus, Where are you from?
SPEAKER_03: But Jesus gave him no answer.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate therefore said to him, Do you refuse to speak to me?
SPEAKER_03: Do you not know that I have power to release you and power to crucify you?
SPEAKER_03: Jesus answered him, You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.
SPEAKER_03: Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.
SPEAKER_03: From then on Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, If you've released this man, you are no friend of the emperor.
SPEAKER_03: Everyone who claims to be a king sets himself against the emperor.
SPEAKER_03: When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge's bench at a place called the stone pavement, or in Hebrew, Gabbatha.
SPEAKER_03: Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover, and it was about noon.
SPEAKER_03: He said to the Jews, Here is your king.
SPEAKER_03: They cried out, Away away with him, away with him, crucify him.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate asked them, Shall I crucify your king?
SPEAKER_03: The chief priests answered, We have no kingdom for him.
SPEAKER_03: Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.
SPEAKER_03: 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 Golgotha.
SPEAKER_03: There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross.
SPEAKER_03: It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
SPEAKER_03: Many of the Jews 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.
SPEAKER_03: Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write the King of the Jews.
SPEAKER_03: But this man said, I am the King of the Jews.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written.
SPEAKER_03: When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier.
SPEAKER_03: They also took his tunic.
SPEAKER_03: Now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top.
SPEAKER_03: So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots, for it is to see who will get it.
SPEAKER_03: This was to fulfill what the scripture says.
SPEAKER_03: They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.
SPEAKER_03: And that is what the soldiers did.
SPEAKER_03: Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopus, and Mary Magdalene.
SPEAKER_03: When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, Woman, here is your son.
SPEAKER_03: Then he said to the disciple, Here is your mother.
SPEAKER_03: And from that hour the disciple took her into his own house.
SPEAKER_03: After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said, in order to fulfill the scripture, I am thirsty.
SPEAKER_03: A jar full of sour wine was standing there.
SPEAKER_03: So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.
SPEAKER_03: When Jesus had received the wine, he said, It is finished.
SPEAKER_03: Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
SPEAKER_03: Since it was the day of preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the Sabbath, especially because that Sabbath was a day of great solemnity.
SPEAKER_03: So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed.
SPEAKER_03: Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him.
SPEAKER_03: But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
SPEAKER_03: Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.
SPEAKER_03: He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe.
SPEAKER_03: His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth.
SPEAKER_03: These things occurred so that the scriptures might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_03: None of his body, none of his bones shall be broken.
SPEAKER_03: And again, another passage of Scripture says.
SPEAKER_03: They will look on the one whom they have pierced.
SPEAKER_03: After these things, Joseph of Arimaith, who was a disciple of the Jew of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus.
SPEAKER_03: Pilate gave him permission, so he came and removed his body.
SPEAKER_03: Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.
SPEAKER_03: They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices and linen cloth, according to the burial customs of the Jews.
SPEAKER_03: Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid.
SPEAKER_03: And so, because it was the Jewish day of preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
SPEAKER_03: Today, Good Friday, is this day that we stand on the threshold.
SPEAKER_03: We are more than overwhelmed with the realities of the darkness of this day.
SPEAKER_03: And yet we know that in just a couple of days, this space will be transformed as we begin once again to celebrate the truth of the resurrection of our Lord.
SPEAKER_03: And so today there is this tension of facing into the darkness and yet longing so much to turn and face into that joy and that hope of new life that is offered to us.
SPEAKER_03: But I think today is a day that we are given permission to stand on that threshold and face that darkness.
SPEAKER_03: We face it with Jesus, we face it with those disciples, with those women standing at the foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_03: Those women who were asking, why?
SPEAKER_03: What is all this for?
SPEAKER_03: We face into the darkness with Pilate, who is torn in two as he struggles, his conscience wanting to lead him one way, and yet societal pressures pulling him in another direction.
SPEAKER_03: We stand there with Jesus, as Jesus suffers, as Jesus suffers, both the reality of being alone, as his friends abandon him, deny him, as people are judging him for a worldview that simply challenges theirs, as people accuse him falsely, as people punish him falsely and ultimately execute him falsely.
SPEAKER_03: And we are aware that as all of this pain and this suffering that we experience in this day, in this narrative of the Passion, we're also aware that those are pains and sufferings that we experience even today.
SPEAKER_03: So as Good Friday as we're living in this threshold, waiting to be able to turn again to that hope.
SPEAKER_03: We are reminded that that is a daily life struggle, that there are days where it's easy to turn and live into that hope of the fullness of life, and that there are days that we too are weighed down with suffering.
SPEAKER_03: Suffering of despair, of loss, confusion, anger, death.
SPEAKER_03: And in a sense, we are weighed down with it, but we're not weighed down with it alone.
SPEAKER_03: For it's as if God carries each of those things that we feel, that he that day, as he carried the cross on his shoulders, he too was carrying our pain and our suffering.
SPEAKER_03: And as we stand here today facing the darkness, allowing ourselves to be in that space of darkness instead of rushing towards the light.
SPEAKER_03: As we stand here on the threshold of the life, Jesus teaches us two things.
SPEAKER_03: Teaches us many things, but two that I would like to offer to you.
SPEAKER_03: First, he teaches us that all of the suffering that we experience, whether we are experiencing it firsthand or we are witnessing those in our community, those in our neighborhood, those in our world who are suffering, we know the truth.
SPEAKER_03: That he stands there with us in that darkness, in that suffering.
SPEAKER_03: That he is there with us.
SPEAKER_03: That God did not incarnate God's self just so he could see what it was like to be a human out of curiosity's sake, but that he came and lived with us and suffered with us so he could be alongside us, so he could say, I know what you are going through.
SPEAKER_03: And we could have peace in knowing that he is truly carrying that weight with us.
SPEAKER_03: And Jesus also taught us that day how to pray, not the Lord's Prayer that we are all so familiar with, but he taught us how to pray a well-known psalm that we identify as Psalm 22 now.
SPEAKER_03: He taught us that when we are standing on that threshold and we are so weighed down that it almost feels impossible to turn towards the light, that it is okay to cry out to God.
SPEAKER_03: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_03: It is okay for us to cry that out.
SPEAKER_03: It is okay to admit when we are facing the darkness, and that we need God's presence.
SPEAKER_03: And the beauty of that psalm is that psalm, if you look through it, is this threshold psalm where we're constantly moving from this place of darkness, feeling weighed down, overwhelmed, and yet there is this perpetual moving towards the light, towards the hope, towards the peace of knowing that God's work is finished.
SPEAKER_03: And so while you while we journey through the rest of Holy Week and we spend the next day and a half in this sense of darkness as we stand on the threshold longing to turn, may we be reminded that sometimes it is okay to be facing the darkness, but to know that we do not face the darkness alone, and to know that we can cry out to God with whatever our emotions are in that moment.