A Service for Good Friday, April 10, 2020

By His Wounds We Are Healed

Join us for the By His Wounds We Are Healed special service for Good Friday. In this service, we remember that Jesus suffers unto death for our sin. Good Friday reminds us that though we have been brought low by sin, our Lord will bless us with new life in him through the cross.

Order of Service

Opening Hymn: Beneath the Cross of Jesus

Response

P   In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

C Amen.

P   It was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.

C When you make his life an offering for sin,

P   he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;

C through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.

P   Christ was wounded for our transgressions,

C crushed for our iniquities;

P   upon him was the punishment that made us whole,

C and by his wounds we are healed.

Confession and Forgiveness

P   Let us confess our sin in the presence of God and of one another.

C Most merciful God, we confess to you that we have broken your commandments by our own thoughts, words, and deeds. We have deserved the penalty of death and condemnation for turning our backs on you. We have not loved our brothers and sisters as we ought, and we have not cared for your creation. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, and give us the healing power of your love that we may walk again in your ways and live to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

P   God is gracious and merciful, and he desires that we be made free of the burden of our sins. Through Jesus Christ, who bore the cross for our sake and for the sake of the whole world, there is healing, hope, and life. Your sins are forgiven in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

C Amen.

Scripture Readings

•  The Old Testament Reading, Genesis 3:14-19:

     The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
   cursed are you among all animals
   and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go,
   and dust you shall eat
   all the days of your life. 
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
   and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
   and you will strike his heel.” 
To the woman he said,
“I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;
   in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband,
   and he shall rule over you.” 
And to the man he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
   and have eaten of the tree
about which I commanded you,
   ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
   in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
   and you shall eat the plants of the field. 
By the sweat of your face
   you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
   for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
   and to dust you shall return.”

•  The Epistle Reading, Romans 6:20-23:

     When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

•  The Gospel Reading, John 19:23-30:

     When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill what the scripture says,“They divided my clothes among themselves,
   and for my clothing they cast lots.” 
And that is what the soldiers did.
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Children’s Message

   Today, we remember the cross of Jesus. We remember the cross of Jesus, really, every time we gather for worship. But we especially remember it because it is a special day of remembrance. It is Good Friday, the day on which Jesus died on the cross. Have any of you ever played or heard of the game called “Monopoly”? It’s a board game, and there’s one place on the board that you never want to land. Do you know what it is? It says, “Go to jail.” When you do, you’re kind of stuck there for a while. You don’t get to play with the other players. You just sit there and stay there like a penalty box in hockey. Still, there’s one card in the deck that says, “Get out of jail free!” That’s a nice card to have if you’re stuck in jail, isn’t it? Well, consider the cross our “get out of penalty free.” It’s free for us, and we are forever free through the cross—and that’s good news for us. But it wasn’t free for Jesus. He gave his life for us. We are drawn to him for that because without him we could never really be free. But through him, we are free, indeed.

Let us pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for making me free from death and sin through your cross. Amen.

Sermon

Our theme for lent was “With His Wounds we are Healed”.  I think the symbolism of the Ragman story fits very nicely with Good Friday.  As the Ragman changes our dirty rags for his clean ones, making us whole, taking upon himself our sins. ~Pastor Dave

The Ragman (adapted from the story by Walter Wangerin, Jr. by Scott Ragan)

I saw a sight so strange and experienced something so amazing that it is hard for me to explain it. If you can give me a few minutes, I’ll do my best to describe it to you.

Before dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking through the back alleys of the city. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new. As he pulled the cart he was calling out in a clear, powerful voice: “Rags! Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags!”

The air was foul in these dark side streets, tainted by the filth and trash that living unleashes on the world. And yet as the man called out, the air became tinged with the faint scent of cleanliness, as though the breeze that carried the sweet music of his voice also carried with it the hope and promise of a cleansing rain and a purifying wind.

“Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!” The man continued to move through the dim light of early morning, his strong voice echoing from building to building and street to street.

“Now, this is a curious thing,” I thought to myself, for the man stood six- feet-four and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular. His eyes flashed with intelligence. What was he doing here, in a city that had no need for such a useless profession. Who recycled rags anymore? Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the heart of a city? Driven by my curiosity, I followed him. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on the porch of a small house. She was crying into a handkerchief, wracked with sobs as she shed a thousand tears. Her body language said it all as she seemed folded in on herself, shoulders down, back slumped forward, knees and elbows making a sad X. She had no hope. Her heart was breaking. Her body may have been alive, but her soul wanted to die.

The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly he walked over to the woman, stepping round empty beer cans and old newspapers, dead toys and broken furniture. “Give me your rag,” he said gently as he knelt beside her, “and I’ll give you another.” The woman looked up into his powerful, compassionate eyes and saw something there that paused her tears. The Ragman slipped the handkerchief from her hand and used it one last time to dry away the flow of tears from her face. Never taking his eyes from hers, he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She looked down at the new cloth and then back again to the eyes of man who had given it to her. The Ragman slowly leaned forward and kissed the woman’s forehead and then turned and walked back to his cart.

As he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her old, used stained handkerchief to his own face…and then he began to weep. He sobbed as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking as the tears flowed down his face in a torrent of grief.

But looking back to the woman on the porch I could see that she was left without a tear. She sat with her shoulders high and a look of wonder on her face.

“This is amazing,” I thought to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman. Like a curious child who cannot turn away from a mystery, I watched the Ragman from a distance.

“Rags! Rags! New rags for old!” rang forth his voice. Though it was still strong, it also shook with emotion as he wept. “Rags! I take your old rags! Rags!”

In a little while, the sky showed gray behind the rooftops. It was light enough to make out the shredded curtains and damaged blinds that hung in dark windows. The Ragman came upon a girl sitting curbside whose head was wrapped in a bandage, eyes as vacant as the windows around her. Blood soaked her bandage and a single line of blood ran down her cheek.

The Ragman paused and turned his weeping eyes upon this empty, injured child. Reaching into his cart, he withdrew from it a beautiful yellow hat and walked towards the girl. “Give me your rag,” he said softly, “and I’ll give you mine.” The child did not move and could only gaze at him vacantly while he loosened the bandage, removed it from her head, and tied it to his own instead. I gasped at what I saw: with the bandage went the wound. The girl’s head was left unblemished, while the Ragman’s head began to bleed. He set the hat on the girl’s head and suddenly her eyes took on an understanding and intelligence that had been missing before. She placed her hand to the side of her head where the bandage had covered the wound that was no longer there. Smiling in wonder, she watched as the Ragman rose unsteadily to his feet and moved back to his cart.

“Rag! Rags! I take old rags!” cried out the sobbing, bleeding Ragman. “New rags for old! Rags!” With his powerful arms pulling the cart, he continued on his way. He seemed to be moving faster now with an urgency I hadn’t noticed before.

He stopped again in front of a man who was leaning against a telephone pole. “Are you going to work?” he asked. The man shook his head. The Ragman pressed him: “Do you have a job?”

The man looked him up and down, making note of the Ragman’s weeping eyes and bleeding head before replying. “Are you crazy?” he sneered as he leaned away from the pole, revealing that the right sleeve of his jacket was flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.

“Give me your jacket,” said the Ragman firmly, “and I’ll give you mine.” Such quiet authority in his voice! The one-armed man looked into the other’s eyes and then slowly took off his jacket. So did the Ragman. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief as I trembled at what I saw: the Ragman’s arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put on the Ragman’s jacket he had two good arms, strong as tree limbs. The Ragman was left with one. “Go to work,” he said as he moved back to his cart.

Struggling to make do with his one arm, the Ragman began to pull his cart again, this time much faster and with greater urgency. He came upon an unconscious old drunk lying beneath an army blanket, hunched, wizened and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.

And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. He was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely from the forehead. He struggled to pull his cart with one arm while stumbling from drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, and sick. Yet he moved with terrible speed nearly sprinting through the alleys of the city covering block after block and mile upon mile.

I wept to see the changes in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow and ached each time I saw him stumble and fall. When he began to move through the industrial area of the city, away from the houses and apartments, I wanted to stop following and turn away from my grief, to leave it behind and go back to my life. But I could not. I needed to see this sad, amazing story to its end. Who was this Ragman? Why had he done what nobody else would have done? Where he was going in such a hurry? How would it end?

The once strong Ragman was now old and frail, weeping and bleeding, staggering and falling, his body wracked with pain, sorrow and disease. I watched as he came to an old abandoned lot that was filled with piles of trash, old furniture, and the rusted out shells of cars and construction equipment. He moved among the garbage pits and piles of human refuse and finally climbed to the top of a small hill made from the trash of a thousand lives. He struggled to pull his cart and its sad, pathetic burden. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill.

With a deep sigh, he slowly made a bed from the contents of his cart and lay down on it. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his old, aching bones with an army blanket. His body shook under the load of its injuries and pain and disease. His eyes wept and the wound under his bandage continued to bleed. With one last, deep sigh, he closed his eyes and died.

Oh, how I cried to witness that death! I sat down in an old, abandoned car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope. I wept because I had come to love the Ragman. As I had followed him, I had watched him work wonders and change lives so profoundly that it didn’t seem fair that he was gone. He had taken those things that were soiled and damaged beyond repair and had replaced them with the new and the whole. He had offered hope to the damaged and lost of the city.

But if the Ragman was gone, then my hope was gone as well. I felt such an overwhelming sense of grief and loss that I remained in the private seclusion of the rusted out car and sobbed myself to sleep. I did not know – how could I know — that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and on through Saturday night as well.

But then, on Sunday morning, I was awakened by a violence that shook me to the core of my being. Light – pure, hard, insistent light – slammed against my tear-stained face and demanded that I awake. When I was finally able to open my eyes, I blinked against the light and squinted in the direction of the pile of trash where the Ragman’s body had been. As I looked, I saw the last and the first wonder of all. The Ragman was there, yes! But he was no longer dead. He was alive! There he stood, folding the old army blanket carefully and laying it atop the neatly arranged handkerchief and jacket. Besides the scar on his forehead, there was no other evidence of what he had previously taken upon himself. There was no sign of sorrow or age, no evidence of illness or deformity. His body was whole and strong and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.

I wept to see him again. When I thought that hope had died along with Ragman, I had abandoned any hope for my own life. And yet there he stood, healthy and whole. Climbing from my shelter I moved toward the Ragman, trembling from what I had seen and because of what I knew I needed to do. Walking to him with my head lowered, I spoke my name to him with shame. Looking up into his clear, loving, compassionate eyes I spoke with yearning in my voice, “Rags. Please take my tired rags and replace them with new ones.”

And he did just that. Taking the old, tired rags of my existence that covered the griefs and wounds of a life sadly lived, he replaced them with the new clothes of a life spent following Him. He put new rags on me and I am now a reflection of the hope he offers to us all.

The Ragman. The Christ

Peace, Pastor Dave

Sermon Hymn  O Sacred Head Now Wounded

Offering

Please continue to give in whatever way you are most comfortable with. You might consider making your offering online at https://rushriverlutheran.org/give/

Prayers of the People

P   Let us pray for the Church, for all in need, and for the whole of God’s creation. That in these three holy days you may give your people hope that it is Jesus, our Lord, who leads the way and takes into his body on the cross the sins of the whole world.

C Heal us, O God.

P   That the cross of Christ, our Lord, may be our final hope and salvation.

C Heal us, O God.

P   That the cross of Christ may be held before the eyes of all who are seeking hope beyond the depths of despair and doom.

C Heal us, O God.

P   That the cross of Christ may be the throne of grace that is more powerful than all the thrones and kingdoms of this world.

C Heal us, O God.

P   That the cross of Christ may gather all the saints together as the sign and symbol of our victory over death.

C Heal us, O God.

P   Into your healing, wounded hands for our sake, we commend all for whom we pray, especially the family and friends of Edna Christenson, Allen Halvorson, Sharon Hurajt, Gary Mead, Merle Overvig, Evan Peterson, Wayne Ramberg and Evie Roen.

C By Christ’s wounds, we are healed. Amen.

Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Blessing

P   May the healing presence of almighty God, Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit, be with you now and always.

C Amen.

Closing Hymn The Old Rugged Cross

By Michael Hoy. © 2020 Creative Communications for the Parish, a division of Bayard, Inc., 1564 Fencorp Dr., Fenton, MO 63026. 800-325-9414. www.creativecommunications.com. All rights reserved.

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