Good Friday Prayer
This Good Friday prayer can be used with a group, at a Good Friday service or as a personal Good Friday prayer. On Good Friday, we remember the trial, conviction, scourging and crucifixion of Jesus. We also recall how he died and was buried in a borrowed tomb. Some Christian traditions observe 3 hours of silence from 12 to 3 PM to commemorate the three hours Christ suffered on the cross before his death. Others drape the altar in black and extinguish lights. This Good Friday prayer can help you mediate on the enormity of the sacrifice of Christ to redeem the world.
Good Friday Prayer
Dear Jesus, We come to you in prayer today on Good Friday remembering the day you were tried, convicted, mocked, beaten and crucified. We remember how You died and were laid into the tomb amid the sounds of incredible grief, fear, shock and sorrow.
Instead of jumping ahead to the happy ending where you arose from the dead on Easter morning, help us to meditate today on Good Friday on your great sacrifice, suffering and pain that you endured for our sake and for the sake of the whole world. In our greatest times of suffering we realize that we never have suffered as you did. You deserved life, honor and praise. Yet you willingly chose death, dishonor and ridicule in order to complete God’s plan.
You could have opened your mouth and with just a few words you could have answered your accusers and proven them to be frauds, hypocrites and liars. Yet you remained silent. You could have called legions of angels, and yet you submitted your back to cruel scourges. You could have called down fire from heaven, yet you instead allowed the blood to flow from your hands and feet onto the wood of the cross. You could have called a fiery chariot like Elijah and been taken up into heaven, yet you chose for your lifeless body to be laid down into a cold dark tomb.
Jesus, I am overwhelmed by the depth of your sacrifice. May I sit in silence and allow myself to look with an open heart toward the cross. Help my knowledge of your suffering and crucifixion journey move from my mind and settle into my heart. Help me to feel the tension between great sacrifice and great love, between suffering and redemption, between death and life, between the fleeting and the eternal. Help me to experience the unseen force of Grace and obedience and weep with both joy and sorrow at the great cost.
Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.
Amen.
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Holy Thursday Prayer or Maundy Thursday Prayer: Promises from Jesus
The Church of All Nations, Jerusalem where Jesus prayed on the night of his betrayal
Copyright Karen Barb er 2014. All rights reserved.
