Good Friday Quote
“Christ is not gloriously transported from earth into heaven. He must instead go to the cross. And precisely there, where the cross stands, the resurrection is near. Precisely here, where all lose faith in God, where all despair about the power of God, God is fully there, and Christ is alive and near.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is on the Cross: Reflections on Lent and Easter
Good Friday Meditations
Paul David Tripp: https://www.paultripp.com/articles/posts/the-glorious-glory-of-good-friday
John Ortberg:
Holy Week Music
The Crucifixion of Jesus by Fernando Ortega. Full album available on Apple Music - also available here on YouTube:
Fernando Ortega's album "The Crucifixion of Jesus" is a musical journey through the events surrounding Jesus' crucifixion, from his triumphal entry to his death on the cross, according to reviews on The Gospel Coalition and Gospel Music Association. The album aims to help listeners reflect on the crucifixion, worship the Savior, and find meaning in the narrative of Christ's life, as noted by Worship Leader Magazine. Interspersed with songs are Scripture readings, selected by Ortega's pastor, according to Gospel Music Association.
Poem: John Donne - Riding Westward
John Donne (1572-1631)
Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
Let man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees God's face, that is self-life, must die;
What a death were it then to see God die?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our souls, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg'd and torn?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to Thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.