Grieving on Good Friday

After Maundy Thursday comes Good Friday. This is the day that Christians remember Jesus' death on the cross, as we grieve and mourn. 

Our Scripture passages include Matthew 27:1-56, Mark 15:1-41, Luke 23:1-49, and John 18:28-19:37. These passages stop after Jesus' death, because the burial passages will be read tomorrow for Holy Saturday. 

This is a more somber day in the church year. It is a day for prayer, fasting, and church services. You can read more details of these events as well as some of the history of this day here. We grieve in the words we pray. We grieve as we abstain from food. We grieve through the services we attend.

This site here recommends setting aside the fun activities (and even work or school if possible) to more fully observe this day of mourning. Some Christians sit in silence from noon until three pm as we remember Jesus' suffering on the cross. Other Christians choose to sing hymns while Jesus was on the cross. This site here has song suggestions. We grieve as we set down our enjoyable hobbies and activities. We grieve as we sit in silence. We grieve as we sing hymns of Jesus' suffering and death. 

The stations of the cross continue from Maundy Thursday as we walk through Jesus' last hours and consider His last words on the cross. These sites here and here goes into more details. The key times are the 3rd hour (9am), 6th hour (12pm), and 9th hour (3pm). So even if "fixed hour praying" isn't common in our denomination, we could set alarms to pause and pray at these times as we remember Jesus' death sentence at 9am, Jesus being nailed to the cross at 12pm, and Jesus' death at 3pm. We grieve as we go through the stations of the cross.

The Tenebrae service from Maundy Thursday could be held instead on Good Friday. It might be possible to split the service into two nights based on the Thursday-Friday split in the Bible. So the Last Supper through Jesus' trials could be observed on Thursday and His sentencing through death could be observed on Friday. (I didn't come across this idea in my research, but was something I wondered about, since some churches hold these services on Thursdays, while others have them on Fridays.) We grieve as the lights are extinguished as we hear about Jesus' suffering and death.

Many people like to rush from the death to the resurrection, but I want to challenge us to sit in the stillness, in the darkness, in the grief of a life cut short, in the uncertainty of what happens next. The disciples experienced fear, hopelessness, and despair from 3pm Friday until Sunday morning. Let us sit with them in this dark watch of the night. 

How will you observe Good Friday this year?