MELROSE UNITED CHURCH 86 Homewood Avenue Hamilton, Ontario L8P 2M4 905 522 1323 [email protected] www.melroseunited.ca www.facebook.com/melroseunitedchurch Twitter: @melroseunited Instagram: @melroseuc Minister: Rev. Sonia Ireson Music Director: Alexander Cann Family Ministries Coordinator: Meg Chalmers Custodian: Kevin Geluch Office Administrator: Michelle Millson Friday April 10, 2020 Good Friday Service MELROSE UNITED CHURCH indicates a time to stand, if you are able congregational responses are in boldface type GATHERING PRELUDE - “Prelude” from Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor J.S. Bach Cello: Kirk Starkey STATEMENT OF PURPOSE One: Today the carpenter’s hands are nailed to a cross, The king of kings is crowned with thorns And wears the purple robe of mockery. Today, he sets us free, himself imprisoned on a tree. Today is God’s Friday. CALL TO WORSHIP One: We have gathered here today from the safety of our homes To remember and give thanks for Jesus Christ, All: the one who knew human joy and sorrow, One: Yet also the one in whom we discover God. All: We give thanks for his life – How he healed, forgave, and brought hope. One: But we also stop to remember his death, To remember – All: How those in power, feeling threatened by him, conspired to kill him; One: We remember how he was betrayed, denied and abandoned by his friends. All: Yet in his death, he bore the sin, grief, and suffering of the world. One: In his aloneness on that cross, we see the mistreatment of others, those ignored, mistreated, oppressed, and we silently stand by. Our sins weigh heavily on our heads. We give thanks for Jesus Christ. All: He lived for us, and he died for us. That is why we worship today. Thanks be to God. OPENING PRAYER (said together) Holy Thief on that middle cross, Surrounded by lesser thieves, Keep us wakeful! Keep us watchful! So that, when you come To steal away all that we cherish too much, To take from us all that keeps us from you, We have the grace To simply give it instead, Along with our hearts, to you. Amen. HYMN – Lift High the Cross VU 151 [Refrain:] Lift high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore his sacred name. 1 Come, Christians, follow where our Saviour trod, the Lamb victorious, Christ the Son of God. [Refrain] 2 Led on their way by this triumphant sign, the hosts of God in conquering ranks combine. [Refrain] 3 Each newborn servant of the Crucified bears on the brow the seal of him who died. [Refrain] 4 Saviour, once lifted on the glorious tree, your death has brought us life eternally. [Refrain] 5 So shall our song of triumph ever be praise to the Crucified for victory. [Refrain] PRAYER OF CONFESSION One: We have come together as one family in Christ. On this day when Jesus expands our understanding of family – drawing the connections between his mother and his beloved disciple – we come before God in confession. In recognition of our brokenness, of the ways we have wounded the relationship we have with God and with each other, we come not so much in shame but with trust. Holy God, Holy and Mighty Holy and Immortal One All: Have mercy on us. One: Let us confess our brokenness. illumin All: Holy God, you call us to walk the way of the cross, but we choose the way that is easy or the one that promises us the best return. You call us to seek out the lost, the lonely, the rejected, But we prefer those who are secure, good company, “together.” You call us to stop at the foot of the cross on our journey, But we would rather bypass death on the way to new life. WORDS OF ASSURANCE One: Jesus invites us into our true home – God’s embrace – where our relationships are tended into wholeness by the healing touch of God’s forgiveness. In that abundant, unconditional forgiveness, as we commend our spirits into fullness with the Holy Spirit, we rejoice in the promise of what we continue to become. Thanks be to God! Amen. SERVICE OF THE WORD Readers: David & Carolyn Duff, Margaret Duff & Jim Kraemer PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION One: May we come before you, O God, with open lives to receive your words that we may give them new life as we listen to what you have to say. Open our hearts so that we may feel your love surrounding us as you teach us to journey in your way. Amen. WISDOM OF ISRAEL: Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. Just as there were many who were astonished at him—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals— so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate. Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the LORD shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. One: The Word of God. All: Thanks be to God. THE FIRST READING OF THE GOSPEL: John 18:1-18 (Betrayal, Arrest, High Priest’s House and Peter’s First Denial) After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples. 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. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” They answered, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus replied, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they stepped back and fell to the ground. Again he asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.” This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken, “I did not lose a single one of those whom you gave me.” Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him. First they took him to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was better to have one person die for the people. Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter was standing outside at the gate. 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.