All Murder and Violence and No Donuts
I am a Pastor at a Lutheran church in Florida. Every year we have a tenebrae service on Good Friday. We incorporate some contemplative and somber elements into the service to reflect on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. We end the service with a silent video clip from an edited black and white version of "Passion of the Christ" while someone sings "Jesus Paid it All" quietly in the background. Then we walk out of the sanctuary in darkness and silence.
Last year, after the service was over I asked an 8 year old girl what she thought of it. She said, "All murder and violence and no donuts." Reflecting back on the service I understand what she meant. The service was lacking the usually celebratory tone that the Sunday morning services offer, and yes, it was lacking donuts.
The word tenebrae actually means darkness. It seems strange that "Good" Friday would be full of darkness.
In order to come to a greater appreciation for the passion of Christ, we have to take a graphic look at the price He paid for us. Things looked pretty bleak for the disciples after the sun went down the day Jesus died. I can only imagine that what they were feeling at the time was probubly pretty dark, too -- hopelessness, despair, and shame.
Participating in the darkness, I think, lets us remember the despair we would all feel without the cross. Our sin would separate us from God for eternity without it, without Jesus. Fully experiencing the darkness without Jesus on Good Friday lets us fully experience the joy of the resurrection on Sunday. When we have a greater appreciation for the cross, worship is a celebration every Sunday, all year long, and even donuts become part of the joy we have in Christ.
Faith In A Dying Savior
I have always been drawn to the thief on the cross and to Jesus' compassionate response to him. The thief knew he didn't deserve paradise, yet Jesus promised it to him simply because he asked. It's a beautiful picture of the simplicity of grace.
This scene also provides us with perhaps the greatest example of faith in the pages of Scripture. Think about it. The thief placed his complete confidence in Jesus at His worst moment, while Christ was defeated and dying. How does a person put their confidence in a Messiah who is hanging condemned and forsaken on the cross right next to them?
This puts our own call to faith in perspective. How do we respond when life makes no sense and God seems distant and everything seems out of control? The thief believed in a dying Jesus. Can you, at those times, believe in a rising one?
"Then he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' Jesus answered him, 'Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise'" (Luke 23:42-43).
Stones of Remembrance
The following illustration can be used as a great object lesson/participative exercise for Good Friday, Communion, or Easter, or can be adapted for a meaningful added element to a funeral service:
Placing a stone of remembrance at the grave of a deceased loved one is a Jewish tradition handed down from antiquity.
There are many different reasons for placing the stones which have all converged into the modern tradition: Before the time of headstones, stones were mounded on top of the grave to secure the grave, and to mark the site so it could be easily located in the future. The entire community mourning the deceased would help in the process of laying the stones. As people would later visit the grave, they would leave another stone to show that they had been there (the more stones, the more honor, because it showed that many people had been there to memorialize the deceased). The stones were also symbolic of an altar (a place that was sanctified and holy). Later in history, as headstones began to replace the mounds of stones, the tradition continued because the stones were seen as a "lasting" remembrance; a way to bring honor to the deceased (after all, flowers fade and die, but the stones will not!).
The imagery is beautifully displayed in the tomb of Jesus. Therein was laid the body of a Jewish rabbi sealed in his tomb by a giant stone. But there was no honor, no memorial. Just a disgraced, betrayed and brutalized Jewish teacher--tortured and crucified for no fault of his own. It was OUR sin that lashed his skin, OUR sin which pressed the thorns into his brow, OUR sin which nailed him to the cross, and OUR sin which rolled the stone that sealed him in that cold, dark tomb. And with all that, his stone tomb becomes a picture of the altar upon which he sacrificed his life for the sins of the world. And now, we have the opportunity to contemplate the role each one of us played in the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf--to really own it--to thank him for his sacrifice--and to bring him the honor due his name. As we approach the tomb, let each one of us bring a stone of remembrance and place it there--along with our own sin--leaving it on the altar of his sacrifice.
*At this point you can invite the congregation forward, single file, to take a stone, write their name on it, and lay it at the foot of the cross or at the base of your Good Friday stage display (we created a garden tomb seen with stone rolled in front of the grave, and laid our stones in front of it). When adapting for a funeral service, you can place the rocks on or beside the casket, either at the church or at graveside. You can also reserve the observance if you later do a headstone committal ceremony.
"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:6-8).