Good Friday Devotions

Revd Dr Cally Hammond, Dean of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge

 

DEVOTION 1 (951)

The fruit of thy body hanging on the tree of the cross.

The Three Hours of Good Friday divide into two parts: later on, we shall enter, all together, into the Passion; we shall be “us”, plural. In this first part, though, everything happens in the singular: I, me, my, mine. It is time, now, to experience this Good Friday just as you are, an individual, unique Christian person, waiting upon your God.

Each of these 3 reflections is built upon a twin foundation: some words of Jeremy Taylor [more about him in OoS]; and a hymn.

Later, we’ll sing the greatest Passiontide hymn of all, written by Isaac Watts: When I survey the wondrous cross. But Isaac Watts himself said the finest hymn ever written was one by Charles Wesley, called Wrestling Jacob. It draws on scripture, of course, Genesis 32, telling how Jacob wrestled one night with a strange being, got a blessing from him, and realised that the stranger is God. Charles Wesley’s genius was to look for himself in that story. Today we can do as Wesley did: find the meaning by looking for ourselves.

Jacob was in danger of his life; it was dark, he was alone. Crisis. Darkness. Solitude. Ideal conditions for meeting God. He encountered – God. He spoke to – God. In this, Wrestling Jacob recalls the Passion: when I survey the wondrous cross, on which the prince of glory died, I am confronted with my own fragility; with all that I most fear — danger, isolation, suffering. All illusion of security is swept away. I am as helpless as a new-born baby. Only without the innocence.

A good Lent prepares me for this Passiontide experience by making me vulnerable, like a creature sloughing off its old skin. But I must be quick, make the most of that vulnerability, that receptivity to divine encounters, before my new skin hardens into a protective shell, like the old one, like my old way of thinking/doing/being.

Wesley spoke of being confident in self-despair. ‘Confident despair’ is an oxymoron, a paradox, like ‘old news’. Christians are used to paradoxes being a way to express truth:

when I am weak, then I am strong; blessed are the poor in spirit; dying we live.

Wesley uses paradox, because only paradox can express divine love. He knows that he cannot, by his own striving, or deserving, reach God. This honesty about his own sin and weakness prove that he is ready to encounter God.

Becoming aware of weaknesses, the primal instinct is to cover them up, hide them from view. Not so for Christians. Jeremy Taylor once wrote (§ not on sheet):

Our blessed Lord was pleased to legitimate fear to us by his agony and prayers in the garden. It is not a sin to be afraid.

Good Friday leaves me nowhere to hide from my own weakness. It exposes my fear of the unknown, which is a form of suffering unique to humankind in creation. Taylor gives me words to pray for this moment, with all the fear it brings: when I dare to admit my true condition,

lift me up from the dust; raise me up from this nothing 

in place of fear, and sin, then I can know my need of Christ:

bring me unto Jesus, to my sweetest Saviour Jesus.

Wrestling Jacob is an icon, of how I search for God, strive to find and know God; then discover that he was always there. I may not know him, but he knows me. Augustine put it like this:

God, you were within me, and I was outside myself,  and it was there that I looked for you.

In Wrestling Jacob God discloses his identity – that identity is Love. S. Paul says that love is the greatest of the three things which last for ever. It is life as divinely willed, not corrupted and compromised by human faults. It is life “in all its fullness”, just as Jesus promises (John 10.10). Jeremy Taylor anticipates this insight in Wrestling-Jacob when he says to God

although in myself I am nothing, yet in him I shall be what I ought to be, and what thou canst not choose but love. 

It was night-time when Jacob wrestled with God. So Wrestling Jacob fits the spiritual darkness that is Good Friday. Jacob perceives that he has spoken with God. He asks God’s name. God does not tell him. Instead, he gives Jacob a new name, יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל   Yisra-el. That new name signifies all my Passiontides, for ‘Israel’ means Struggles with God (Hosea 12.4). Jacob’s struggle with God foreshadows Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane, and his “lonely suffering on the cross” [We have a Gospel]

—Eli eli, lama sabachthani?

It resounds downs the ages: in Jeremy Taylor, in Charles Wesley; in me. There is a form of wrestling which many of us experience: sleeplessness.
Wrestling Jacob does not resolve that form of struggle: but it does remind me that when all around are sleeping, and I am effectively alone, God may come to me. Even if I do not spend that time wrestling with God, there is still my life to be thankful for, and the peaceful rest of loved ones, close by me, or far away. And maybe praying a sacred name gently, quietly, – Jesu, Jesu –  will be enough to remind me that I can lay me down in peace and take my rest, for it is God alone who makes me dwell in safety.

So yes, Jacob wrestled with God in darkness. But the darkness is no darkness with God. Sometimes darkness, in the desert or the wilderness, or on a journey, or in a wakeful bed at home, is where I find what I did not even know that I was looking for.

1 Come, O thou Traveller unknown,
whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
and I am left alone with thee.
With thee all night I mean to stay
and wrestle till the break of day.

2 Wilt thou not yet to me reveal
thy new, unutterable name?
Tell me, I still beseech thee, tell,
to know it now resolved I am.
Wrestling, I will not let thee go
till I thy name, thy nature know.

3 My strength is gone, my nature dies,
I sink beneath thy weighty hand,
faint to revive, and fall to rise.
I fall, and yet by faith I stand;
I stand and will not let thee go
till I thy name, thy nature know.

4 Yield to me now—for I am weak,
but confident in self-despair!
Speak to my heart, in blessing speak,
be conquered by my instant prayer.
Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
and tell me if thy name is Love.

5 ‘Tis Love! ‘tis Love that wrestled me!
I hear thy whisper in my heart.
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
pure, universal Love thou art.
To me, to all, thy mercies move—
thy nature and thy name is Love.

 

DEVOTION 2  (1013)

May I dwell in the heart of my dearest Lord, which was opened for me with a spear and love.

Those words are Jeremy Taylor’s words; but every time I pray them, they are my words too.

Many Christians never open a book of spiritual writing, not JT nor any other. Most Christians learn their spirituality from singing. Hymns are not just pop songs with the words tweaked, like My Guy morphing into My God in Sister Act. They are physical expressions of the bond between us and God, words and music dedicated to a holy purpose.

When I sing, I am committing mind, spirit, and body, to the worship of the one true God, whose name I know; and whose Son died as on this day, and died for me. It does not matter whether I am a good singer or not; so long as I stand with everyone else, I am part of the bodily offering of praise. I can’t play football, but when I am in the stadium cheering my team on, I am truly a contributor to how the team play. And so it is with being part of the body of Christ. On Good Friday I fix my thoughts on that one holy body, the body of our Lord, hanging on the cross to save me. So now I turn to another hymn by Charles Wesley, to help me enter into that one-to-one relationship with my Lord and my God.

All around me in the world naked aggression, naked greed, are flourishing. Violence. Exploitation. Oppression. Human suffering seems to be as eternal as the human sin and wickedness which provoke it.

Into that sink of iniquity and destruction comes our Lord Jesus Christ. Not as a conquering hero, but as a “mere man”, it seems. Without courting trouble, or engineering conflict as a means to self-promotion, or seeking martyrdom to feed his thirst for recognition Jesus allows himself to become the focal point for other people’s suspicion, anger, defensiveness, resentment, greed. His goodness throws their selfishness – and mine – into sharp relief.

But Jesus does not impose peace upon warring factions. Or compel religious interest groups to unite. He is not here to fix us from the outside. He is here to heal us from the inside. It is a fundamental of Christian faith that God’s eternal Word became incarnate as Jesus, the son of Mary, the foster-son of Joseph. That he became like us, to make us like him. But I may well doubt whether this has been achieved. Am I really like him at all? Would I dare to face the cross? Perhaps there are saints among us who would walk selflessly into danger at the Lord’s side. I hope I might be one of them, but I cannot know. None of us can know how we will respond to times of suffering until we are right in the midst of them. And then we have three choices: run, or resist, or endure.

This second Wesley hymn is a prayer for such a moment. The angel is in the detail: the hymn’s first word is “Jesu.” That was the usual English spelling and pronunciation of the Lord’s name until the AV supplanted it with “Jesus.” Using the old form can get me past the uncomfortable feeling that I am uttering a profanity when I use his name in prayer. When there are no other words to pray, I can always say: Jesu Jesu Jesu.

This hymn plunges me into the midst of peril: peril such as Jesus faced, and Peter lied his way out of, and the rest dared not even think of facing. It will give me an answer of sorts to suffering and danger: not that Jesu will save me from them; but that he is a “safe stronghold” (as another hymn puts it), a “haven” (as this hymn puts it), a “place to hide me in” (as the psalmist puts it). So Jeremy Taylor’s prayer is my prayer too: May I dwell in the heart of my dearest Lord, which was opened for me with a spear and love.

 A few years ago, when I was unwell, I chose this hymn for my funeral. It was a Friday night down the pub with my husband; but such conversations come when they come. When I sing it, the words are not Wesley’s, they are mine. I think Charles Wesley would be glad of that. It may not be a passion-tide hymn, but it is the most passion-ate hymn I know.

Legends have grown up around its composition:
(i) Wesley was inspired by having survived a perilous Atlantic voyage;
(ii) he was at his desk when a small bird entered through his study window, evading a sparrowhawk;
(iii) he was on a preaching tour in Ireland and escaped an angry mob by hiding under a hedge.
There are other legends, too, of how hearing or singing it has changed people’s actions from violence to repentance.

I don’t know if the legends are true. But I do understand how these words could have inspired them.

The tune, Aberystwyth, is a different kind of miracle. It’s by an iron master from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. Joseph Parry learned how to read and write while studying harmony from fellow iron-workers who were also musicians. His tune is called after the town of Aberystwyth, where he wrote it in 1879, a year after being made Doctor of Music in Cambridge.

I commend to you for meditation the first two lines of v.2: Other refuge have I none, Hangs my helpless soul on thee. In this service, unfolding at the foot of the cross, those two lines turn the crucifixion inside-out. My sinful self is nailed to Christ who is the cross; and I am “helpless.” So I must thank God that Jesus, as another hymn puts it, is the help of the helpless: And I should thank God too that Charles Wesley invites me to join him in celebrating this message: confession is liberating, salvation is thrilling, grace is everlasting.

1 Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high:
Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide;
O receive my soul at last.

2 Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, oh, leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me.
All my trust on Thee is stayed,
All my help from Thee I bring;
Cover my defenceless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.

3 Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in Thee I find;
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
Heal the sick and lead the blind.
Just and holy is Thy name,
I am all unrighteousness;
Vile and full of sin I am,
Thou art full of truth and grace.

4 Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin;
Let the healing streams abound;
Make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee;
Spring Thou up within my heart,
Rise to all eternity.

 

DEVOTION 3  (997)

A Prayer for the Grace and Strengths of Faith.
O holy and eternal Jesus,
let me always be thy servant and thy disciple.
I renounce whatsoever is against thy truth;
and if secretly I do believe any false proposition,
I do it in the simplicity of my heart
and great weakness;
and, if I could discover it,
would dash it in pieces by a solemn disclaiming it;
for thou art the way, the truth, and the life.

There is no right place on this day for the words I want to share now. But they must be spoken, so here is where I am putting them.

Those words of Jeremy Taylor are simply a gift. A prayer to take away, to use, to learn from. Taylor speaks to Jesus as I can speak to Jesus:
as Moses once spoke to God — face-to-face, as with a friend; a friend who loves me enough to tell me where I am going wrong, and to walk beside me as I find my way to the right path.

At this moment when Jesus is nailed in coerced stillness, we should remember, with Taylor, that Jesus is also dynamism, kinesis, energy: he is he Way.

But the end of this service is closer than when we began our devotion, at noon. The time is coming when, like the women at the foot of the cross, like every mourner at a churchyard burial, or crematorium committal, we must turn, and walk away, and go on. These words are meant for that moment:

let me always be thy servant and thy disciple;
for thou art the way, the truth, and the life.

They are a direction to set off in; a pledge for all of life that is yet to come.

Already here, Wrestling Jacob and Aberystwyth have spoken to the immediate reality of the crucifixion. In just a little while, the Liturgy of Good Friday will bring us to meditation, united, on that moment of salvation.

The third hymn for our reflection is a mixture. Its words are drawn from Augustine, and like Jeremy Taylor’s prayer, they are about the Way, the truth, the Life. Its tune, though, is Passion Chorale. In hymns there is a sacred bond between words and notes; so these words, to these notes, may have a jarring effect. But together, they prepare us for what must come hereafter, once we have left this holy house.

Absorb Taylor’s prayer of personal commitment, with the music and words of the hymn, all together. They will bring home the truth that the Passion is first a fleeting moment in history, and then the unfolding of life in Christ: womb-to-tomb. Together, these elements real-ise life in relationship with Christ:
from the first moment of Christian enlightenment to the last moment of this earthly pilgrimage, and beyond into the “fadeless splendour bright” that is the life of the world to come.

That relationship is possible because we have been made for fellowship with God, and “our heart is restless until it rests in him.” My restless heart is a gift from God, to show me that this world can never satisfy me. If I covet the things of this world, the more I feed my appetites, the more I will crave and hunger. Augustine’s words about the “restless heart” also point to a particle of divine light within every person. The divine light comes to me, the Light of the World that is Christ, the light which lightens everyone who has ever lived. This alone bestows the capacity to reach out to God. Without it, there can be no point of contact with him at all.

That is about each of us as an individual. What about us all, as the Church, gathered here today? What about us-as-the-body-of-Christ?

Without the breath of life which God has breathed into us, we are mere isolated individuals. Jesus, the true and living Bread, gives us new life: he feeds us with his body and blood. Once we are fed and strengthened by Christ, we are to discipline ourselves in obedience to the Spirit; so his will can master ours. For just as gravity pins us to the earth, so the weight of sin stops us from taking the upward path to life: Christ alone can overcome that gravity (in both senses) of sin.

Augustine looked back to the child, and then the man, that he once was, and to the Christian he had become, and said: O Lord my God, you are light to the blind and strength to the weak, and endure – as light to those who see, and  strength to the strong; You are the strength of my soul.

The hymn begins with the Light that comes from without, the one thing that makes it possible to know God at all. It leads me through meeting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, the one who feeds me with his body and blood, and who, as on this day, Good Friday, died for me.

Good Friday is an ending, yes – but it is also a beginning: when I receive a new what God has made part of me from the beginning – that divine light which returns to its origin and draws me with it.

All the words and the notes and the prayers, they point the same way; to what Taylor has put so perfectly for us. So all we need to do is mean what we say when we pray them: I want always to be a servant and disciple. I want to cleave to Jesus, who is the Truth; I admit that parts of me are resistant to his goodness.

But I commit to striving against my lower nature, knowing that I have no power, apart from him, to do for myself what he does for me. And I admit, at the end, simply this: Jesus, you are the Way the Truth the Life. There is no need, for me, of anything more.

Light of the minds that know him,
may Christ be light to mine!
My sun in risen splendour, my light of truth divine;
my guide in doubt and darkness,
my true and living way,
my clear light ever shining,
my dawn of heaven’s day.

Life of the souls that love him,
may Christ be ours indeed!
The living Bread from heaven
on whom our spirits feed;
who died for love of sinners
to bear our guilty load,
and make of life’s journey
a new Emmaus road.

Strength of the wills that serve him,
may Christ be strength to me,
who stilled the storm and tempest,
who calmed the tossing sea;
his Spirit’s power to move me,
his will to master mine,
his cross to carry daily
and conquer in his sign.

May it be ours to know him
that we may truly love,
and loving, fully serve him
as serve the saints above;
till in that home of glory
with fadeless splendour bright,
we serve in perfect freedom
our strength, our life, our light.