Good Friday

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Today marks the third community-wide Stations of the Cross here in my little town (I guess that makes it a ..... TRADITION!!! .......)

This was something I started .... well .... three years ago ..... as I was looking for a way to make a presence in the community, let people know that the Episcopal church was alive and kicking, and to be a possible tool for evangelism. So we will gather next to the church and parish hall and make our way through the fourteen Stations as we wind around town. Our path takes us past the Roman Catholic, Baptist, AG and Methodist churches, two parks, the bank, a bar, the pool, the hospital and a couple of restaurants before ending up back at Christ Church.

For this, the RC deacon and UMC pastor will be present with me as we read the versicles and responses and the closing trisagion. Other participants will read a meditation at the appropriate station.

After arriving back at CC, we will have the Good Friday liturgy in the church (of which I always kick myself for not saving the old crosses from atop the building when we had the roof re-done .... having one of those for the veneration would have been way cool; but I wasn't thinking about Good Friday then). The UMC pastor and I will lead that service, and we, along with the non-denominational pastor from down the road, will read the Passion.

Have a holy Good Friday.

Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.