I would like to tell you about a special event we had at our church on Good Friday evening. We wanted people to experience in as personal and participative a way as possible, the suffering that Jesus went through on that great and terrible day.
We had two rooms. The first room was a contemplation and music room (see picture) where people viewed images of Jesus’ suffering, the poor and homeless, sang an occasional song, read Scriptures from the gospel accounts and other thought provoking texts as well, like poetry. They faded in and out. We kept them fast enough to keep their interest, but slow enough to allow them to contemplate. In the background was a guy playing an acoustic guitar quietly.
People were taken from this room to our main gathering room where we normally have church. This area had several stations which I will describe in detail below. We had the group stand around the table/station and the guide stood behind them and read from a prepared text. We basically followed Matthew’s account, but we inserted from Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 some verses at appropriate times. During the whole time in this main room we had a song playing: Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet by Jars of Clay. It is a very catchy and memorable tune.
Station One: Jesus was condemned. Here we read the account of Pilot’s caving in to the crowd and declaring he is innocent of this man’s blood. Each person washed their hands in slightly red water. There was a rope that bound Jesus’ hands perhaps, and a gavel representing the sentencing we all handed down.
Station Two: Jesus was scourged and mocked. There was a scarlet piece of cloth that the soldiers mocked him with. There were thorns there that each person was encouraged to touch, and pictures of a whip, as well as some branches to give it a more realistic feel.
Station Three: Jesus receives his cross and Simon of Cyrene is forced to carry it for him. There were rocks on this table that we asked people to carry which symbolized, not just the weight of the cross, but the weight of our sin.
Station Four: The crucifixion of Jesus. Here we basically had 3 areas.
- The first was a table where we had three large nails and a candle representing that we rejected Jesus as the light of the world.
- The second was an actual cross where we carried our rocks to. We used our rocks to pound a nail into the cross and then left our rocks there, symbolizing that we nailed Jesus to the cross but that we leave our sins there at the cross.
- The third was a common work of symbolic art. Basically we dipped our hands in paint and put the paint on a piece of linen in the shape of the cross
This symbolized that we all had a hand in Jesus death. This is eventually going to be a piece of art for our church.
Station Five: The death of Jesus. We went into a small room and read some verses of Scripture and tasted the wine vinegar that Jesus tasted and then turned off the lights as even the lights of heaven mourned the death of the Savior. We stood there in total darkness until it was too uncomfortable.
Station Six: The burial of Jesus. At this station we looked at a wrapped body lying on a table. We read the scriptures and were told to think about the death of Jesus and the suffering that he endured and then also to go home and wait.
Response: This table was for response, where people wrote in our journal, on papers that they left there, or took with them about their reaction to the event.
About 60+ people went through and everyone that we talked to had a most favorable reaction.
The follow-up on Sunday was that we had the strips of linen on the cross and I let them cut a piece of the linen cloth because, you know, Jesus doesn’t really need it anymore!
Thanks for praying for this event it went better than I had planned.
Blessings,
David
