Good Friday

“Unless there is a Good Friday in your life, there can be no Easter Sunday.” – Ven. Fulton Sheen

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 which had grown old are being made
new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection
by him through whom 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, for ever and ever. Amen. [BCP page 280]

No cross or crucifix. No candles. No Christian art. Nothing shiny. No color save for black.

No sacrament.

The starkness of Good Friday, even when expected, can still be jarring.

It is then, with no other sensory distractions, that we hear the words.

There are two verses in the Good Friday bidding above, my favorite in the entire Book of Common Prayer, that always catch my attention. The first is “by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation.”

It reminds me of one of the more famous quotations in poetic history. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge published in 1798 a volume that changed the literary landscape and dramatically shifted the Classical Period into the Romantic.

In the preface to Lyrical Ballads, they noted that poetry ideally is “emotion recollected in tranquility.” In other words, the poet recalls a strong reaction to an event, image, sound, or person at a later time when one is circumspect and objective. This enables a greater understanding of context, one that is neither studied nor academic, but personal and meaningful.

The reference to tranquility in the bidding above is important.

Through it we perceive God as a poet, with the subsequent plan for humanity serving as God’s poetry.

It is a very different view of God. God is one who brings lyricism to existence.

It also speaks of the personal and meaningful relationship we have with God, with whom we share in today’s mourning, as our prayerful action in the face of chaos enables tranquility to be realized.

The second aspect of the bidding requires some personal context.

Working clergy are often tired by Good Friday. However extroverted one may be, I recall from my days working with large parishes that by Good Friday I had already officiated at four or five completely individual liturgies that week, usually in the evenings, with another five or six remaining over the next three days. Despite the spiritual depth of Holy Week and the privilege of leading a congregation through it, the time from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday is a grind.

While Good Friday is welcome for its simplicity and its stark and contemplative nature, one is fatigued and, if the overnight vigil has been kept, lacking in sleep. That, joined with the sense of death that dominates the day of crucifixion, makes the psychic weight daunting.

Then, there is that remarkable passage; that light as if by dim candle that illuminates a corner of the final part of the proper liturgy “…let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection….”

When attired in a black cassock, having read the Gospel’s Passion Narrative, with the moment of Jesus’ death marked by a period of silence, with the devotions and discomfort claiming one’s attention, to be invited to “see and know” that in the midst of these things the world is actually being restored, that newness may inform age, that perfection has not been chased away, is all that is necessary, at least for me, to enter into the remainder of Holy Week with an appropriate sense of hope and worthwhile action.

Thank you for joining us on the Lenten pilgrimage we have shared over the last six weeks. May you have a holy Good Friday, and may you revel at the Resurrection to come.

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 and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The lections for today may be found here.