April 2, 2021 - Good Friday - Forsaken by God
“Tested by families, for families (and others too). Church at Home is an interactive, weekly worship service to be held from the safety of your own home. Each service will be centered around one theme and will have 3 songs, readings, and prayers, a short (4-5 min) message for children, and a longer (10 min) message for the whole family.”
Thank you for joining us for our Church at Home service!
Directly below in English and here in Spanish is an at-home worship service to be held with the family or as an individual or small group. Included are links to songs and pastoral messages (English, Spanish, Bilingual) which will be made available every Saturday on Youtube. The head of the household can lead (L) and others can respond (C) or everyone can take turns. Use the links for the songs and messages at the appropriate time. Please do not feel pressured to go through the whole thing in one sitting. Rather, use each element of this service so that it serves as a blessing to you and your family.
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May God bless your Church at Home worship service this week.
Pastor William Dunn
Good Friday
Forsaken by God
God is just. God is love. It seems like a paradox. God in his justice has to punish sin, but in his love he does not want anyone to be lost. Both characteristics of God are found in the cross, his love and his justice. In his righteousness God punished sin, punishing his Son Jesus Christ, instead of punishing us. At the cross, he showed us his immense love. The cross is the strongest proclamation of law and gospel, of sin and grace.
Opening Song - What Wondrous Love is This
Invocation
L. In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
C. Amen.
Confession and Absolution
We begin the service by recognizing how we have fallen short of God’s will and desire for our lives, and we receive the good news that we are forgiven in Jesus Christ.
L. Let us approach God with a true heart and confess our sins, asking him in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to forgive us.
C. Lord of life, I confess that I am by nature dead in sin. For faithless worrying and selfish pride, for sins of habit and sins of choice, for the evil I have done and the good I have failed to do, you should cast me away from your presence forever. O Lord, I am sorry for my sins. Forgive me, for Jesus’ sake.
L. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. In his great mercy, God made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in our sins. Hear the word of Christ just as he proclaimed to the paralytic: "Take heart, your sins are forgiven.” Let us take this forgiveness to heart and proclaim it to each other in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Prayer of the Day
L. God Most Holy, look with mercy on this your family for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, be given over into the hands of the wicked, and suffer death upon the cross. Keep us always faithful to him, our only Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
C. Amen.
First Lesson - Isaiah 52:13-53:12
God through the prophet Isaiah describes in great detail some seven hundred years before Christ the agony that Jesus was going to suffer on the cross. Isaiah also tells us the result of his suffering and his innocent death, "by his wounds we are healed."
13 Look, my servant will succeed.
He will rise. He will be lifted up. He will be highly exalted.
14 Just as many were appalled at him—
his appearance was so disfigured that he did not look like a man,
and his form was disfigured more than any other person—
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him,
because they will see something they had never been told before,
and they will understand something they had never heard before.
53:1 Who has believed our report,
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot
and like a root from dry ground.
He had no attractiveness and no majesty.
When we saw him, nothing about his appearance made us desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man who knew grief,
who was well acquainted with suffering.
Like someone whom people cannot bear to look at,
he was despised,
and we thought nothing of him.
4 Surely he was taking up our weaknesses,
and he was carrying our sufferings.
We thought it was because of God
that he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
5 but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced.
He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved.
The punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all have gone astray like sheep.
Each of us has turned to his own way,
but the LORD has charged all our guilt to him.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth.
Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that is silent in front of its shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
8 He was taken away without a fair trial and without justice,
and of his generation, who even cared?
So, he was cut off from the land of the living.
He was struck because of the rebellion of my people.
9 They would have assigned him a grave with the wicked,
but he was given a grave with the rich in his death,
because he had done no violence,
and no deceit was in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him
and to allow him to suffer.
Because you made his life a guilt offering, he will see offspring.
He will prolong his days,
and the LORD’s gracious plan will succeed in his hand.
11 After his soul experiences anguish, he will see the light of life.
He will provide satisfaction.
Through their knowledge of him, my just servant will justify the many,
for he himself carried their guilt.
12 Therefore I will give him an allotment among the great,
and with the strong he will share plunder,
because he poured out his life to death,
and he let himself be counted with rebellious sinners.
He himself carried the sin of many,
and he intercedes for the rebels.
Psalm of the Day - Psalm 22
For the choir director. According to “Doe of the Dawn.” A psalm by David.
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
My groaning does nothing to save me.
2 My God, I call out by day, but you do not answer.
I call out by night, but there is no relief for me.
3 Yet you are seated as the Holy One, praised by Israel.
4 In you our fathers trusted.
They trusted and you delivered them.
5 They cried out to you, and they were rescued.
They trusted in you, and they were not disappointed.
6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by men and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me. They sneer.
They shake their heads.
8 They say, “Trust in the LORD.”
“Let the LORD deliver him.
Let him rescue him, if he delights in him.”
9 But you are the one who brought me out of the belly.
You made me trust when I was at my mother’s breasts.
10 I was cast on you from the womb.
From the belly of my mother you have been my God.
11 Do not be distant from me, for distress is near,
and there is no one to help.
12 Many bulls surround me.
Strong bulls from Bashan encircle me.
13 Enemies open their mouths wide against me,
like a lion that tears its prey and roars.
14 Like water I am poured out.
All my bones are pulled apart.
My heart has become like wax.
It has melted in the middle of my chest.
15 My strength is dried up like broken pottery,
and my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth.
You lay me in the dust of death.
16 For dogs have surrounded me.
A band of evil men has encircled me.
They have pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I can count all my bones.
They stare and gloat over me.
18 They divide my garments among them.
For my clothing they cast lots.
19 But you, O LORD, do not be distant.
O my Strength, come quickly to help me.
20 Deliver my life from the sword,
my only life from the power of the dog.
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion.
From the horns of the wild oxen you have answered me.
22 I will declare your name to my brothers.
In the midst of the congregation I will praise you.
23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Stand in awe of him, all you descendants of Israel!
24 For he has not despised nor detested the affliction of the afflicted.
He has not hidden his face from him,
but when he cried out to him, he heard.
25 You are the source of my praise in the great congregation.
I will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who fear him.
26 The poor will eat and be satisfied.
Those who seek him will praise the LORD—
may he live in your hearts forever!
27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations will bow down before you.
28 For the kingdom belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.
29 All the rich of the earth will eat and bow down.
All who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.
30 Descendants will serve him.
For generations people will be told about the Lord.
31 They will come and proclaim his righteousness
to a people yet to be born—
because he has done it.
Second Lesson - Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
The writer to the Hebrews reveals Jesus Christ to us as our great High Priest, whom he shared in humanity, suffering the same temptations as we do without sinning. By his obedience and his death we have one who both understands our need and gives us the remedy.
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest, who has gone through the heavens, namely, Jesus the Son of God, let us continue to hold on to our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. 16 So let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
7 In the days of his flesh, he offered prayers and pleas with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. 8 Although he was the Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. 9 After he was brought to his goal, he became the source of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him.
Gospel - John 19:17-30
Jesus Christ, the King of kings, became obedient until death and death on the cross. Still suffering physical pain and the burden of the sins of the world, Christ showed his love for his mother Mary, and fulfilled all the prophecies of the Old Testament. At the point of his death, he could truly say, "It is finished." The debt of sin was canceled. Salvation is certain for all who believe in him.
17 Carrying his own cross, he went out to what is called the Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him with two others, one on each side, and Jesus in the middle.
19 Pilate also had a notice written and fastened on the cross. It read, “Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.”
20 Many of the Jews read this notice, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek.
21 So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that ‘this man said, “I am the King of the Jews.” ’ ”
22 Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
23 When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier. They also took his tunic, which was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. 24 So they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it. Instead, let’s cast lots to see who gets it.” This was so that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says:
They divided my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing.
So the soldiers did these things.
25 Jesus’ mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene were standing near the cross.
26 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother!” And from that time this disciple took her into his own home.
28 After this, knowing that everything had now been finished, and to fulfill the Scripture, Jesus said, “I thirst.”
29 A jar full of sour wine was sitting there. So they put a sponge soaked in sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.
30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished!” Then, bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.
Song - My Song is Love Unknown
English Sermon
Confession of Faith - The Apostles' Creed
We speak the truths of the faith that have united the church for thousands of years.
I believe in God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Offering
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Online Connection Card
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General Prayer
Use this time to pray to God about anything that is on your heart and mind. Remember who God is and how he describes himself in the Bible. Focus on his eternal perspective. Consider not only your own life, but also the lives of others. Finally, pray with confidence knowing that God hears you, and pray in the name of your savior, Jesus Christ.
The Lord's Prayer
Pray the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread; forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us; lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever. Amen.
The Blessing
Just as God told Aaron to bless his people in this way, we ask God’s blessing on us as we go forth in our lives.
L. The Lord bless us and keep us.
The Lord make his face shine on us and be gracious to us.
The Lord look on us with favor and ☩ give us peace.
C. Amen