Good Friday

Christ, the Son of God, redeemed us with his blood. Come, let us adore him.

This week I plan to split the newsletter up. I felt that Good Friday and Easter Sunday deserved their own editions because what we remember on Friday is very different to what we remember on Sunday. For the Good Friday edition, I have a short film for you to watch. However I need to say a couple of things about it before you do.

Firstly, this will include, but is not totally on, the brutal pain and death Jesus endured. The point of showing this is to bring home to all of us just what Jesus, the Son of God went through to save us from our sins. We so often repeat the lines of the Apostles Creed ‘..suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried’, without much thought. We know God died for us, yet it can seem distant and almost can become an idea, rather than a moment in history which was witnessed by the Apostles and many others. What was that long awaited morning like for Jesus as the Romans processed him for death? The feel of the rough wood on a body ravaged by a whip called the cat of nine tails - a whip that had lumps of bone or metal placed in it so that it could rip flesh. What a sight He must have been. We need to be confronted sometimes by this, to shake us out of our indifference or luke warm-ness.

The second thing to note about the film is that it was produced by a Protestant Reformed Church in the States, which was showing it for their Good Friday Service, and now on Youtube. The beginning of the film has an introduction by the Pastor. You can skip this part (2:21) or just watch. It’s just to bear in mind.