Good Friday 2024: "Words Are A Stain On The Silence"

And when they reached the place known as Golgotha (which means "Place of the Skull"), they gave him a drink of wine mixed with something bitter; and once he tasted it he didn't want to drink it. After crucifying him they divided up his garments by casting lots.  And they sat down there and kept guard over him. And over his head they put an inscription which identified his crime: "This is Jesus, the King of the Judeans."

Beginning at noon darkness blanketed the entire land until mid-afternoon.  And about 3 o'clock in the afternoon Jesus shouted at the top of his voice:  "Eli, eli, lama sabachtani" (which means "My God, my God, why did you abandon me?")

Jesus again shouted at the top of his voice and stopped breathing.

Matthew 27:33-37, 45-46, 50 (SV)

"Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid."--John 19:41

Good Friday should be silent.  The church should be shrouded, the altar stripped, funereal cloths draped, only prayers and whispers heard.  No music; certainly there should be no music. A few words from the pulpit, perhaps.  Not a sermon, not even a homily.  Scripture readings; prayers.  But largely: silence.

Good Friday should be silent.  This is the one day the church should be dominated by silence. The world needs occasions to consider the values of silence.

This is also the one day of the liturgical year when even Protestants should display a crucifix: a cross with a body on it, hands and feet pierced with nails, blood and liquid running from a wound in the figure's side, crowned with a particularly vicious crown of thorns. Then again, who would come to church to see such a thing, and be reminded?

I will also point out that the words shouted by Jesus are the first lines of the 22nd Psalm.  The one that precedes the much more famous 23rd.  There is an entire sermon in that alone.  But not on Good Friday. This is not a day for more words.