{"id":1598,"date":"2021-03-31T21:54:04","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T21:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oneking.ca\/wp\/?p=1598"},"modified":"2021-03-31T21:54:04","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T21:54:04","slug":"good-friday-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/2021\/03\/31\/good-friday-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/875\/40477163915_f61480976a_c.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>HOLY WEEK SERVICES<\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>Early Christian writing reveals that Holy Week has been marked since at least the 4th century. One such writer, a Christian noblewoman named Etheria, wrote from the Holy Land back to the women in her community describing daily worship in the week leading up to Easter. It is in this tradition that we share services this week.  Thanks this morning to Cor, Taye, and Bunny.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<p>PRELUDE: &#8220;Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/oneking.ca\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/8-Jesus-Keep-Me-Near-the-Cross.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>SCRIPTURE SENTENCES:<\/p>\n\n\n<p>He was despised and rejected by others; <br \/>\na man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; <br \/>\nand as one from whom others hide their faces <br \/>\nhe was despised, and we held him of no account.<br \/>\nSurely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; <br \/>\nyet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.<br \/>\nBut he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; <br \/>\nupon him was the punishment that made us whole, <br \/>\nand by his bruises we are healed. \u2014Isaiah 53.3-5<\/p>\n\n\n<p>PRAYER:<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Good Friday God: <br \/>\nlook graciously, we pray, on us your people <br \/>\nfor whom your Beloved, Jesus, <br \/>\nwas willing to be betrayed, <br \/>\nto be laid open to the powers of this world, <br \/>\nto suffer death on a cross. <br \/>\nGrant us your presence on this day of his passion, <br \/>\nthat we might be with him, through death to resurrection. <br \/>\nWe pray in the name of our crucified Saviour.  Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>READING: <\/p>\n\n\n<p>As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate asked him, \u2018Are you the King of the Jews?\u2019 He answered him, \u2018You say so.\u2019 Then the chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate asked him again, \u2018Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you.\u2019 But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed. \u2014Mark 15.1-5<\/p>\n\n\n<p>HYMN: &#8220;What Wondrous Love is This&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/oneking.ca\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/10-What-Wondrous-Love-Is-This.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>REFLECTION<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Like Pilate, Pliny the Younger was a Roman governor. And though he served some seventy years after Pilate, little had changed in the intervening years. Governors were conservative by nature, intensely loyal to Emperor they served, and chiefly concerned with keeping the peace.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Our interest in Pliny is twofold: he was an active letter-writer, and many of his letters survive, and he was active in the earliest persecution of Christians. Now, you might think this would make him a villain, like Nero or Diocletian, but the opposite is true. Pliny was a moderate in the application of the law, and through his letters we learn about the early church.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>He is perhaps most famous for his description of our spiritual forebears, again, a moderate description considering his role. Writing to his Emperor he notes:<\/p>\n\n\n<p>They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds [and] not to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of a meal&#8211;but ordinary and innocent food.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>In this he reads like an anthropologist, and while he was no friend of the fledgling church, a hint of respect shines through. Some would make the same argument looking back at Pilate, a hint of respect in the midst of tumultuous events.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Now, expanding empire and a culture dedicated to order meant rules, and in the judicial realm there developed a system known as cognito. In modern terms we might call it a bench trial, trial by judge alone, and it fit the idea of the all-powerful military governor perfectly. And Pliny gives us a description:<\/p>\n\n\n<p>In the meanwhile, the method I have observed towards those who have [been] denounced to me as Christians is this: I interrogated them whether they were Christians; if they confessed it I repeated the question twice again, adding the threat of capital punishment; if they still persevered, I ordered them to be executed.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>The key idea here was the three questions: defendant dragged to court, someone brought a charge, and the magistrate asks the defendant three times to defend themselves. We hear an echo of this in Peter\u2019s denial, the cock crow convicting him in perpetuity, but for today it is Jesus on the stand, with Pilate in the judgement seat:<\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>First question: \u201cAre you the King of the Jews?\u201d<br \/> Jesus: \u201cYou say so.\u201d (a non-answer)<br \/> Second question: Have you answer to these charges?<br \/> Jesus: No answer.<br \/> Third Question: Do you see how many charges are brought against you?<br \/> Jesus: No answer.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Oh yes, in the cognito system, refusing to defend yourself guaranteed a conviction. But there is something else: Pliny saw something in the early church that Pilate saw too.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>For whatever the nature of their creed might be, I could at least feel no doubt that stubborn refusal to comply with authority and inflexible obstinacy deserved punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>In other words, believers were a stubborn lot who seemed to answer to some higher authority and therefore deserved to die. So maybe this is the theme for the day: rational men meet obstinate believers and someone must die.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>PRAYER<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Gracious God of grief and of suffering,<br \/>\nthis Friday seems \u2018good\u2019 for all the wrong reasons. <br \/>\nBe with us in these hours as we gather <br \/>\nin the shadow of the cross of Christ <br \/>\nand hear again the story of death and the sounds of burial. <br \/>\nThis is not where we would choose to be, O God, <br \/>\nbrought face to face with this symbol of death and instrument of torture. <br \/>\nForgive us, where we have sought to avoid such times: <br \/>\nwhere we have ignored the cross or denied our own pain, <br \/>\nor turned our backs on the sufferings of others. <br \/>\nStrengthen us to be here today, <br \/>\nthat we may know that you are here with us. <br \/>\nYou know the ways of the world, O God: <br \/>\nyou have been there; you are here; <br \/>\nyou have loved and cried <br \/>\nand lived and died <br \/>\nto be with us, to comfort us, <br \/>\nto forgive us and to free us. <br \/>\nFor this we give thanks. <br \/>\nThis we call \u2018good.\u2019 <br \/>\nAmen. <\/p>\n\n\n<p>HYMN: Were You There<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/oneking.ca\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/1-Were-You-There.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>BLESSING:<\/p>\n\n\n<p>The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all,<br \/>\nbut in everything, by prayer and petition,<br \/>\nwith thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.<br \/>\nThen the peace of God that surpasses all understanding<br \/>\nwill guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.<br \/>\n\u2014Philippians 4.5b-7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HOLY WEEK SERVICES Early Christian writing reveals that Holy Week has been marked since at least the 4th century. One such writer, a Christian noblewoman named Etheria, wrote from the Holy Land back to the women in her community describing daily worship in the week leading up to Easter. It is in this tradition that &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/2021\/03\/31\/good-friday-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Good Friday<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelkooiman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}