Tag: Good Friday

29Mar

A Commemoration of Good Friday

  1. Hymn: “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” From a Good Friday service in 2018 at the First Congregational Church of LA, used in accordance with Creative Commons License.
  2. First Reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12, King James Bible.
  3. Motet: Thomas Tallis (1505-1588) “Salvator Mundi”, uploaded to YouTube by “mk671tv”, used in accordance with Creative Commons license. Text in English: O Saviour of the world, save us, who by thy cross and blood hast redeemed us, help us, we pray thee, O Lord our God.
  4. Psalm 22 from the King James Bible.
  5. Motet: Antonio Lotti (1667-1740) “Crucifixus”, Performed by Coro Universidad Nacional de Rio Corto, used in accordance with Creative Commons license. Text in English: He was crucified also for us, under Pontius Pilate he suffered and was buried.
  6. Second Reading: Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9, World English Bible.
  7. Motet: Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) “O Vos Omnes”, Performed by the Tudor Consort. Available on YouTube at “Free Music Channel” under Creative Commons license.  Text in English:  All you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow. Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow: if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.
  8. A Reading of the Passion Narrative from John 18:1–19:42, World English Bible.
  9. Organ postlude: Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) “Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund” performed by Jean-Dominique Pasquet on the grand organ of l’Oratoire du Louvre à Paris, used in accordance with Creative Commons License.

The Bible passages were recorded by Librivox, and are in the public domain. Readings correspond to the Revised Common Lectionary. All audio files are given with attribution where known.

07Apr

A Commemoration of Good Friday

  1. Hymn: “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” From a Good Friday service in 2018 at the First Congregational Church of LA, used in accordance with Creative Commons License.
  2. First Reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12, King James Bible.
  3. Motet: Thomas Tallis (1505-1588) “Salvator Mundi”, uploaded to YouTube by “mk671tv”, used in accordance with Creative Commons license. Text in English: O Saviour of the world, save us, who by thy cross and blood hast redeemed us, help us, we pray thee, O Lord our God.
  4. Psalm 22 from the King James Bible.
  5. Motet: Antonio Lotti (1667-1740) “Crucifixus”, Performed by Coro Universidad Nacional de Rio Corto, used in accordance with Creative Commons license. Text in English: He was crucified also for us, under Pontius Pilate he suffered and was buried.
  6. Second Reading: Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9, World English Bible.
  7. Motet: Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) “O Vos Omnes”, Performed by the Tudor Consort. Available on YouTube at “Free Music Channel” under Creative Commons license.  Text in English:  All you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow. Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow: if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.
  8. A Reading of the Passion Narrative from John 18:1–19:42, World English Bible.
  9. Organ postlude: Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) “Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund” performed by Jean-Dominique Pasquet on the grand organ of l’Oratoire du Louvre à Paris, used in accordance with Creative Commons License.

The Bible passages were recorded by Librivox, and are in the public domain. Readings correspond to the Revised Common Lectionary. All audio files are given with attribution where known.

15Apr

A Commemoration of Good Friday 2022

  1. Hymn: “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” From a Good Friday service in 2018 at the First Congregational Church of LA, used in accordance with Creative Commons License.
  2. First Reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12, King James Bible.
  3. Motet: Thomas Tallis (1505-1588) “Salvator Mundi”, uploaded to YouTube by “mk671tv”, used in accordance with Creative Commons license. Text in English: O Saviour of the world, save us, who by thy cross and blood hast redeemed us, help us, we pray thee, O Lord our God.
  4. Psalm 22 from the King James Bible.
  5. Motet: Antonio Lotti (1667-1740) “Crucifixus”, Performed by Coro Universidad Nacional de Rio Corto, used in accordance with Creative Commons license. Text in English: He was crucified also for us, under Pontius Pilate he suffered and was buried.
  6. Second Reading: Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9, World English Bible.
  7. Motet: Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) “O Vos Omnes”, Performed by the Tudor Consort. Available on YouTube at “Free Music Channel” under Creative Commons license.  Text in English:  All you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow. Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow: if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.
  8. A Reading of the Passion Narrative from John 18:1–19:42, World English Bible.
  9. Organ postlude: Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) “Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund” performed by Jean-Dominique Pasquet on the grand organ of l’Oratoire du Louvre à Paris, used in accordance with Creative Commons License.

The Bible passages were recorded by Librivox, and are in the public domain. Readings correspond to the Revised Common Lectionary. All audio files are given with attribution where known.

02Apr

Ugh, That Devil Baby!


An Image from “Passion of the Christ”

I have watched again as a kind of Holy Week devotion, the grisly Mel Gibson film “The Passion of the Christ”.  This movie takes viewers deep into the horrors experienced by Jesus in his final hours. (Too deep, say some critics—A reviewer writing in Slate called it a “two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie” and asks “What does this protracted exercise in sadomasochism have to do with Christian faith?” Roger Ebert on the other hand answered this question; “This is not a sermon or a homily, but a visualization of the central event in the Christian religion. Take it or leave it”).

As if the biblical subject matter weren’t gut rending enough, a disturbing image is inserted into the flogging scene.  As the Roman whips rip chunks out of Jesus’ flesh, our messianic torture victim looks up and sees a vision of the oddly androgynous Satan holding a creepy looking baby that has the face of a leering middle aged man.

This image has confused many.  Of course, none of the Satan appearances are exactly biblical, though it may be supposed that the forces of darkness were fully arrayed in Jesus’ last moments.  Mr. Gibson gave an explanation that sounds as though this scene might have been thrown in merely for its weirdness effect.  “It’s evil distorting what’s good,” Gibson told Christianity Today. “What is more tender and beautiful than a mother and a child? So the Devil takes that and distorts it just a little bit. Instead of a normal mother and child you have an androgynous figure holding a 40-year-old ‘baby’ with hair on his back. It is weird, it is shocking, it’s almost too much — just like turning Jesus over to continue scourging him on his chest is shocking and almost too much, which is the exact moment when this appearance of the Devil and the baby takes place.”

I rather liked the image, extra-biblical though it is, as a metaphor for lost humanity. Before God rescues us from sin, humans both collectively and individually are like that stunted disgusting thing that sucks at the teat of evil, drawing a form of power but ultimately being kept from growing into what we were intended to become.  

Spiritually speaking we begin life like rather like those miserable Orcs in Tolkien’s famous tale, of whom Saruman the wizard says: “Do you know how the Orcs first came into being? They were elves once, taken by the dark powers, tortured and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life.”

Somehow, by what Jesus went through on that otherwise horrible occasion, we have the chance to be reconciled to God and brought back into glory.  Another writer concurs: “And there in the background is Christ, on the path to the cross, to break those “maternal” bonds to Satan and replace them with bonds to our true father in heaven.” (in All about Jesus Christ)

We get a second chance to shed our debased orc nature, and become elves again. That is why this day is “Good Friday”. 

02Apr

Good Friday: The Passion Of Jesus Christ According to St. John, and Other Readings and Music Appropriate for The Occasion.

Good Friday 2021
  1. Hymn: “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” From a Good Friday service in 2018 at the First Congregational Church of LA, used in accordance with Creative Commons License.
  2. First Reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12, King James Bible.
  3. Motet: Thomas Tallis (1505-1588) “Salvator Mundi”, uploaded to YouTube by “mk671tv”, used in accordance with Creative Commons license. Text in English: O Saviour of the world, save us, who by thy cross and blood hast redeemed us, help us, we pray thee, O Lord our God.
  4. Psalm 22 from the King James Bible.
  5. Motet: Antonio Lotti (1667-1740) “Crucifixus”, Performed by Coro Universidad Nacional de Rio Corto, used in accordance with Creative Commons license. Text in English: He was crucified also for us, under Pontius Pilate he suffered and was buried.
  6. Second Reading: Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9, World English Bible.
  7. Motet: Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) “O Vos Omnes”, Performed by the Tudor Consort. Available on YouTube at “Free Music Channel” under Creative Commons license.  Text in English:  All you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow. Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow: if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.
  8. A Reading of the Passion Narrative from John 18:1–19:42, World English Bible.
  9. Organ postlude: Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) “Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund” performed by Jean-Dominique Pasquet on the grand organ of l’Oratoire du Louvre à Paris, used in accordance with Creative Commons License.

The Bible passages were recorded by Librivox, and are in the public domain. Readings correspond to the Revised Common Lectionary. All audio files are given with attribution where known.

10Apr

On Good Friday God’s Privilege Was Checked At The Cross

…the god-man suffers too, with patience. Evil and death can no longer be entirely imputed to him since he suffers and dies. The night on Golgotha is so important in the history of man only because, in its shadows, the divinity ostensibly abandoned its traditional privilege, and lived through to the end, despair included, the agony of death. Thus is explained the “Lama sabachthani” and the frightful doubt of Christ in agony

Albert Camus, Essais (Gallimard, 1965), p. 444. Translated and quoted by Bruce Ward in “Prometheus or Cain? Albert Camus’s Account of the Western Quest for Justice,” Faith and Philosophy (April 1991): 213.

(My hat is tipped to Timothy Keller for bringing this quotation to my attention).

19Apr

Mysterious Goings-on at the Temple?

On a bleak day in the year 33 of the Common Era, Jesus of Nazareth, a righteous man who had run afoul of both Jewish authorities and the Roman government, had been hastily sentenced to death, and had just trudged his way to Golgotha, the “Place of the Skull.” This man, Jesus, was then nailed to crossed beams of wood and forced to hang there until dead. As if this weren’t awful enough, accounts of the event suggest that while he hung on the cross, eerie events occurred: Blackness filled the sky, and other supernatural portents punctuated the event of his death. Matthew relates:

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
(Matthew 28: 50-54)

One of the most shocking of these aspects of the New Testament accounts of the death of Jesus is the spontaneous tearing of the massive “temple veil”. This is generally thought to have been the barrier that guarded the entrance to the “holy of holies”, the sacred space into which only the high priest could enter; However, this isn’t perfectly clear, and could also refer to an outer court veil that would be more visible. Naturally, secular historians don’t believe that this actually occurred, and even Christians, who accept it on faith, treat it as a minor footnote between the agonies of Jesus’ death and the glories of the Resurrection, which is a much more impressive miracle.

Intriguingly, extra-biblical sources do also attest to some weird goings on at the Jewish temple, in about the year 30. In an interesting article entitled, “Something Awry in the Temple?” Robert L. Plummer, a New Testament professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, reviews six of these sources, which include the Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud, the Midrash Rabbah, and the writings of Josephus.

The Jerusalem Talmud presents four disturbing and inauspicious signs:
It has been taught: Forty years before the destruction of the Temple the western light went out, the crimson thread remained crimson, and the lot for the Lord always came up in the left hand. They would close the gates of the Temple by night and get up in the morning and find them wide open. Said [to the Temple] Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, “O Temple, why do you frighten us? We know that you will end up destroyed. For it has been said, ‘Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars!’” (Zech 11:1).17

In a work known as “the lives of the prophets”, dating to the first quarter of the first century, an oracle attributed to “Habakkuk” states:
At that time,” he said, “the curtain of the Dabeir [that is, the temple curtain separating the Holy from the Holy of Holies] will be torn into pieces, and the capitals of the two pillars will be taken away, and no one will know where they are; and they will be carried away by angels into the wilderness, where the tent of witness was set up in the beginning. And by means of them the Lord will be recognized at the end, for they will illuminate those who are being pursued by the serpent in darkness as from the beginning.”

Josephus’ account mentions the spontaneous opening of the eastern door, as well as other portents, including a comet, the shining of a mysterious bright light from the altar, and a heifer that had been brought in for slaughter mysteriously giving birth before it could be slain. An earthquake in the Temple grounds was also reported, as relayed by Plummer:

For purposes of confirming the NT records, it is significant that Josephus speaks of an earthquake that was felt in the temple precincts. According to Josephus, this earthquake was accompanied by a loud sound—like the sound of many voices—which some present interpreted as saying, “Let us depart from here” (not a particularly auspicious statement). Josephus dates this particular event to an unnamed Pentecost preceding the destruction of the temple.

It should be noted that these stories differ significantly from each other, and from the Gospels. Furthermore, the dating of these stories cannot be correlated precisely to what we would call “Good Friday.” But they do testify to a belief on the part of Jewish people, that some mysterious portents occurred in and around the Temple, around the year 30.

Sources:
1. Holy Bible, English Standard Version.
2. Plummer, Robert L, “Something Awry In the Temple? The Rending of the Temple Veil and Early Jewish Sources That Report Unusual Phenomena In The Temple Around AD 30.” Journal of the Evangelical Theologicsl Society 48 (June 2005): 301–316. Online at:
https://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/48/48-2/48-2-pp301-316_JETS.pdf

30Mar

Good Friday and the Temple Veil

St. Mark, the gospel writer, noted that when Jesus died:

Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.
And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.
(Mark 15: 37-38)

In three of the four accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion, we have a mention of the curious fact of the rending of the temple veil, or curtain. The curtain in view here is probably the barrier that guarded the entrance to the “holy of Holies”, the most sacred part of the Hebrew Tabernacle (and later, the Temple in Jerusalem). Within this chamber resided the Ark of the Covenant (until it became lost to history). This chamber represented the presence of God. No one was allowed to enter except the High Priest, and even he could only enter once a year on Yom Kippur (the great “Day of Atonement”). The barrier was for the protection of the people, who could not survive a direct encounter with the presence of God.

Ancient Jewish tradition would suggest that this barrier was formidable (though debate about the thickness exists; see a full discussion by Baptist seminarian Charles Bumgardner at his blog). It is unclear whether the veil was a single thick panel, or a single panel hung in such a way as to create a maze. It may even have been two panels. (For a lengthy discussion, see the article “The Veil of the Temple in History and Legend” by Daniel M. Gurtner).

According to a 2014 news report, a group of women in Israel are struggling with the challenge of recreating the Veil: “The women of the veil chamber,” as they call themselves, have founded a little workshop in the biblical Samarian community of Shiloh that is filled with weaving devices and wool. . This curtain is no thin wisp of cloth: The size of the veil itself, a single rag-like object measuring 20 meters high, 10 meters wide and 10 centimeters thick, is a project of immense complexity in and of itself.
(From Israel Today. I have not found any follow up reporting on their progress).

I might pause to note that some debate also exists also as to which curtain was torn. Some early theologians, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, believed that the torn curtain was not the one protecting the Holy of Holies, but a more visible and external curtain, hanging in front of the outer courts. There would have been two curtains in the temple, since the temple followed biblical blueprints initially given for its predecessor, the mobile Tent of Meeting (or Tabernacle): “You shall make a screen for the entrance of the tent, of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, embroidered with needlework.” (Exodus 26:36, English Standard Version)

In his Commentary on St. Matthew, Aquinas noted that the deepest mysteries still remain hid from us:

And these two veils signify a twofold veiling, because the inside veil signifies the veiling of heavenly mysteries, which will be revealed to us: for then we shall be like to Him, when His glory shall have appeared. The other veil, which was outside, signifies the veiling of mysteries which pertain to the Church. Hence, the outer veil was rent, but the other one was not, to signify that mysteries which pertain to the Church were made known by Christ’s death; but the other veil was not rent, because heavenly secrets still remain veiled. Hence, the Apostle says: “But when Israel shall be converted to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away” (II Cor. 3, 16). Hence, by the Passion, all mysteries, which were written in the Law and the prophets, were opened, as it is stated: “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things that were concerning him” (Lk. 24, 27).
(St Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on St. Matthew, available online).

The important point for us isn’t the nature or location of the curtain, but rather the deeper meaning and symbolism behind its rupture. Even this may have multiple layers of possibilities. As I was preparing this article, I discovered one blog article that linked the tearing of the veil to the Jewish custom of tearing one’s clothes at a time of great distress, such as grief from the death of a loved one. The idea is that God was tearing His clothes at a moment of deep anguish.

A more common interpretation would be something like this:

The rending of this veil means that access into the presence of God is no longer limited to the high priest; in the era after Christ’s death, all believers may boldly come before the Almighty’s throne. … Clearly, with the death of Jesus a cataclysmic change happened in the way we approach the Father, as well as with God’s relationship to the temple. It was, John Calvin writes, “an opening of heaven, that God may now invite the members of his Son to approach him with familiarity.” (R.C. Sproul, Ligonier Ministries).

Jesus’ death has accomplished something wondrous. God has destroyed the barrier that separates us from His presence.

04Apr

Allegri’s “Miserere Mei” sung by the Tallis Scholars

In honor of Holy Week:

This beautiful piece was composed by Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652), for performance in the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday and Friday of Holy Week.  For a time, according to the oft-told mythical story, the song was the well guarded secret of the Vatican, which forbade its publication, until a 14 year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visited on Good Friday 1770 and later transcribed the entire piece from memory.  This is probably not true, but makes a great story (for a full debunking, read Ben Byram-Wigfield’s 1996 essay, “MISERERE MEI, DEUS, GREGORIO ALLEGRI: A Quest for the Holy Grail?”, pg 16, online here).  There was certainly a mystique about the music that led such as person as Mary Shelley to gush:

But a thousand times over I would go to listen to the Miserere in the Sistine Chapel ; that spot made sacred by the most sublime works of Michael Angelo … The music, not only of the Miserere, but of the Lamentations, is solemn, pathetic, religious – the soul is rapt – carried away into another state of being. Strange that grief, and laments, and the humble petition of repentance, should fill us with delight – a delight that wakens these very emotions in the heart – and calls tears into the eyes, and yet is dearer than any pleasure.
(From Mary Shelley: Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842 and 1843. Vol 2. London, Edward Moxon, 1844), Vol 2, 230–31; as cited in Graham Kelly’s essay for the University of York Dept of Music, “A unique singers’ manuscript from the 19th century: Domenico Mustafa’s version of the Miserere of Tommaso Bai and Gregorio Allegri”, which can be found online here.)

The version heard commonly today is not likely what a guest to the vatican would have heard in Mozart’s time.  The “top C” version we all know and love turns out to have been the happy result of an error.  For you musicologists out there, the Wigfield essay mentioned above explains this in detail:   The received version, as it is widely held today, is a mix of Burney’s first choir with a bizarre second choir, congealed into life in the first edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music & Musicians in 1880. As an illustrated example, W.S. Rockstro showed the first half of the four-part verse as indicated by Alfieri, but then sticks Mendelssohn’s 1831 record of the first half —up a fourth— on the second half of the verse. Ivor Atkins, for his edition of 1951, took Burney’s first choir and final verse, adding this second choir from Grove’s. The problem is that the Mendelssohn abbellimenti is also a record of the first half, apparently sung a fourth higher than written at the time of his visit. It is this that causes musicologists to squirm with the bass jumping from an F# up to a C, followed by the swift gear change into C minor. This error has been repeated in two subsequent editions, produced by respected academics. The result is strangely beautiful, and probably here to stay. It is, after all, one of the most popular pieces of sacred music. However, it is neither a representation of the performance practice of the Sistine Chapel choir, nor a true reflection of how the piece was ever sung there.

A theological point can be made here, and perhaps I’ll embellish it down the road: Sometimes God uses our mistakes to His greater glory.