Dear God, I want to say thank you for my wife. She’s amazing. She left just a little bit of you everywhere she went yesterday. A local business lost the husband of the couple that owns it (I mentioned this yesterday), and she was able to send their manager whom she knows well a column she wrote about that man almost nine years ago. He told her how much it blessed him and everyone he shared it with at the business. She mentored a fifth-grader grader at the local elementary school. She lead singing at our church last night for the Last Supper service (some call it Maundy Thursday, but Catholics don’t for some reason). She went to the funeral of a friend’s mother and got to love on that friend. She even went out of her way to give me a lovely compliment. Thank you for her and for living so beautifully through her.

Here are the verses Good Friday from Sacred Invitation: Lenten Devotions Inspired by the Book of Common Prayer.

• AM Psalms: 22, 95
• PM Psalms: 40, 54
• Genesis 22:1-14
• John 13:36-38, 19:38-42
• 1 Peter 1:10-20

Psalms 22, 95 – The tone of these two psalms is so different. It’s interesting that they are paired together this morning. Psalm 22 expresses so much pain while Psalm 95 calls us to worship. It made me wonder about what was going through Jesus this morning nearly 2,000 years ago. If he had written a psalm that morning (it’s not like he could have, but if he had), what would he have said. What words would have described what was in his heart? Maybe this same type of mixture–anguish and worship.

Psalms 40, 54 – Thinking of Jesus’s betrayal from Judas, but also the men who purported to be your representatives through the temple, Psalm 54 is set up with, ” A maskil of David. When the Ziphites had gone to Saul and said, “Is not David hiding among us?” Then David says in the psalm, “Strangers are attacking me; ruthless men seek my life–men without regard for God.” Oh, how sad this betrayal must have been for him. Abandoned. Alone–even from you. Alone maybe for the first time in his existence–on earth or before earth. Oh, my Jesus. Thank you.

Genesis 22:1-14 – I’ve never liked this story as a comparison with what you did with Jesus, giving us your only son, because I don’t think your instructions to Abraham about Isaac have anything to do with what you did with Jesus, EXCEPT, this morning I noticed that maybe the ram with his horns stuck in the thicket is the Jesus figure here. Maybe Isaac is my sin, and I am sentenced. In verse 22:8, Abraham says, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Then in verse 14, Abraham calls that place, “The LORD Will Provide.” Yes, you did provide, Father.

John 13:36-38, 19:38-42 – You are in a place where I cannot yet go, but you have left your Holy Spirit here with me to walk with me, comfort me, teach me, guide me. Thank you. As for Nicodemus helping Joseph care for Jesus’s body, I still think it is one of the most beautiful acts of love and self-sacrifice I’ve ever seen.

1 Peter 1:10-20 – I’ll confess I’m not really feeling this passage this morning. It doesn’t seem to fit as much with where my head is right now. I’ll just say that I love that Peter was who he was, experience what he experienced, made the mistakes me made, learned the lessons he learned, repented of his mistakes and sins, and lived an amazing bold life for you. What a great example!

Father, I offer this day to you. Thank you for the Friday that was so good for me and so tragic for you. I am yours.

I pray all of this in the name of Jesus, my Lord, and with your Holy Spirit who resides in me,

Amen