Holy Week
Ideas & Reflections for Good Friday and Holy Week
Holy Week is an opportunity to take a
multi-sensory approach to worship. Using a variety of visual and tactile media, the week is rich in symbolism and gesture as we get to grips with the mystery and wonder of the journey, surrender and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross.
Look Properly
I don’t want to dwell on Good Friday
Because those few hours of
pain make no sense to me:
That God who is Perfect Love
Should leave splendour and awe and heavenly realm
To walk in dust, wear crown of thorns,
Be beaten and hung upon the cross
Hated and despised, To Die.
To look too hard upon Good Friday
Will shine a light upon my soul
And find it bruised and scarred by sin,
Made unlovely and broken by the things I’ve done
And those things done to me
Of which I never speak.
To look too hard upon Good Friday draws me in
To search the depths inside me,
To let Good Friday touch my hidden places of
Sorrow and Pain, Personal Agony and Fear-
And to let His Love that takes it all
Unclip the long-held hurts
Unhook the secret sin and shame
Unzip the cache of guarded guilt.
I don’t want to dwell upon Good Friday
As Jesus hung and died upon the cross,
Nor see him die my sinner’s death
To feel the searing separation of his Father’s wrath.
Cry real tears upon Good Friday!
And grieve for this great loss,
That it cost Perfect Love to die
For you to be forgiven-
Your heart be unclipped from all it held
Your spirit be restored to purity
Your soul be washed, made new, by Jesus’ blood.
And when you have dwelt for long enough
Under the shadow of the Cross’s grace
And have let it do its eternal work within you-
Then you may live in the Glory of Easter
Knowing that the answer to your question is
‘Perfect Love’.
© Catherine Hutton
20th March 2012
