Prayer for Good Friday

Good Friday provides an opportunity to meditate on our need for Easter. When we survey the wondrous cross, we pour contempt on our pride, and come with sharpened hunger to the festal table the risen Christ spreads for us on Easter morn.

If you are in the Washington, DC, area during Holy Week, you are welcome to join us for our Good Friday service, which is usually held at 6:00 pm. Please check our website to confirm service times this year (2021 Good Friday service details here). 

Prayer for Good Friday

Included in the Liturgical Forms and Prayers of the URCNA is a prayer for use in a Good Friday service. Though intended for public worship, this prayer is also commended for personal or family use as well:

Our Father, who so loved the world that You gave Your only begotten Son, we acknowledge and marvel at Your mercy. Even while we were enemies, You reconciled us; even while we were strangers, You made us fellow heirs with Christ of all eternal blessings; even while we stood condemned, You redeemed us; even while we were imprisoned, You delivered us from the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil. On this solemn occasion, we loathe our miserable estate and celebrate Your marvelous grace. Beneath the cross of Christ, we come to know that ours is the guilt, but Yours the forgiveness; ours the condemnation, but Yours the gift of justification; ours the bondage, yet Yours the freedom of adoption and new obedience. Even the faith with which we confess our dear Savior’s sacrifice was won for us by His death. Therefore, we cry out to You in sorrow for our sins and in thanksgiving for Your gift. Give us the grace, we pray, to receive again this word of the cross, which alone can refresh us on our pilgrim way, and send us out again into the world as witnesses to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Amen.

Many American Christians tend to be a bit allergic to written prayers, but they are an important part of the Reformed tradition on the European continent. While such prayers are for voluntary use — our Church Order doesn’t require them — they are a valued resource. While they are suitable to be read in the home or for a service, they can also serve as useful outlines for more extemporaneous prayers.

What follows is a brief commentary on our Good Friday prayer.

Commentary

Our Father, who so loved the world that You gave Your only begotten Son, we acknowledge and marvel at Your mercy. 

Our prayer opens by addressing God as Father, as Jesus instructed us in Matthew 6:9, and acknowledging the great mercy he showed us by sending his Son to die for us on the cross. Our Heidelberg Catechism reminds us that the Creator God “is my God and Father for the sake of Christ his Son.” The death of Jesus secured our adoption as sons and daughters so that we pray to God as our Father. 

Even while we were enemies, You reconciled us; even while we were strangers, You made us fellow heirs with Christ of all eternal blessings; even while we stood condemned, You redeemed us; even while we were imprisoned, You delivered us from the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil. 

The first petition, as it were, is a confession of sorts acknowledging the fallen state we find ourselves in apart from God’s mercy: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God sent Jesus to die for us while we were enemies, strangers, condemned, imprisoned, and under the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil. By beginning our prayer with this humble approach, we acknowledge the magnitude of God’s gift given on Good Friday.

This is always a wonderful way to start our prayers to a holy God, and this form provides an excellent model for us.

On this solemn occasion, we loathe our miserable estate and celebrate Your marvelous grace. Beneath the cross of Christ, we come to know that ours is the guilt, but Yours the forgiveness; ours the condemnation, but Yours the gift of justification; ours the bondage, yet Yours the freedom of adoption and new obedience. Even the faith with which we confess our dear Savior’s sacrifice was won for us by His death. 

Next, the prayer moves to the particular occasion for which it is offered, Good Friday.

Good Friday is one of the “evangelical feast days” that celebrate the saving works of our savior. Reformed Christians don’t hold to a church calendar, per se. We desire our worship to be biblical, and we do not believe the New Testament teaches us that keeping a calendar of feast days is a useful pattern for the people of God in the new covenant (Colossians 2:16). Rather, we hold that the weekly rhythm of the Lord’s Day is the most important liturgical rhythm for saints under the new covenant and that Christians should celebrate the resurrection every Sunday. 

And yet, we acknowledge that it is reasonable and permissible to regularly, even annually, acknowledge key anniversaries in the history of redemption. Good Friday is one such “solemn occasion.” We should “preach Christ and him crucified” in every sermon, but on Good Friday we are able to dwell on the weighty message of the cross. Thus, on Good Friday the purpose of the cross of Christ, in particular, is highlighted, namely, our great sin which required such a great sacrifice. 

The special services Reformed Christians mark are called “evangelical feast days” because they are based on the crucial gospel (evangelical) events in our Savior’s life. We believe Christ’s birth, death, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the spirit may be celebrated with annual services that focus on Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. Reformed Christians preserved these ancient celebrations because they were not man-made or man-focused, unlike the medieval church calendar’s celebration of saints’ days and other feasts.

One of the benefits of marking Good Friday is that it allows for a robust celebration and focus on the resurrection on Easter Sunday. There is no Easter joy without Good Friday sorrow — the story of the cross and the tomb are intertwined. But celebrating both of these radical extremes in a single service can be quite difficult. As a result, Easter in the modern church often skims over the bad news of the cross. We believe there is wisdom and richness in given each moment in Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection its due attention.

Therefore, we cry out to You in sorrow for our sins and in thanksgiving for Your gift. Give us the grace, we pray, to receive again this word of the cross, which alone can refresh us on our pilgrim way, and send us out again into the world as witnesses to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Amen.

Again I say: Good Friday provides an opportunity to meditate on our need for Easter. Confess your sin, pour contempt on your pride, and come with a sharpened hunger for the festal table the risen Christ spreads for you on Easter morn.

We hope you’ll join us for our Good Friday service at Christ Reformed Church.

A Guide to Thanksgiving Day Prayer

It is good to acknowledge our limits, and all of us have endured a mediocre prayer or two before digging in to our Thanksgiving Day feast.

Of course, the Lord welcomes all faithful prayer, and the Spirit interprets our groanings. But leading a group in public prayer is a skill that is developed through practice, Scripture study, and theological reflection. Not all of us are equally gifted, and it can be nerve-wracking to be called upon to pray when you are unprepared.

 One of the great benefits of being a member of a confessionally Reformed church is the ability to draw on a rich liturgical tradition, including a Book of Forms and Prayers that dates to the sixteenth century reformation. The United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA) have made their book available in full online at www.formsandprayers.com, so a theologically rich prayer is never more than a few screen taps away. These prayers can profitably be read verbatim, or used as a model or guide, providing an outline for a beautiful prayer. 

Our book includes liturgical forms and prayers for the Lord’s Day worship, as well as additional prayers for special services such as Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. There are also prayers for ecclesiastical assemblies and for personal and family use.

Here are a few thoughts on the Thanksgiving Day Prayer:

Our Sovereign God, who created all things for Your pleasure and who gives to all life, breath, and every good thing, we thank You for our creation, our preservation, and all the blessings of this life. 

 The doctrine of creation is the foundation of much biblical thanksgiving. Our prayer opens by reminding us that all things were created for God’s pleasure, and that his work of creation continues in his current work of preservation. All good things come to us from God.

For rain and sunshine, in abundance and in lack, we acknowledge that our times are in Your hands. You supply all of Your creatures with Your good gifts, the just and the unjust alike. 

 We thank God not only for good things and abundance, but for his supervision of our lack. Our comfort in all circumstances comes from the knowledge that “our times are in His hands.”

Nevertheless, we especially give You praise for the surpassing greatness of Your saving grace, which You have shown to us in Christ Jesus our Savior. For our election in Him before the foundation of the world, for our redemption by Him in His life, death, and resurrection, for our effectual calling, justification, sanctification, and all of the blessings of our union with Him, we give You our heartfelt thanks. 

 While creation may be the foundation of our thanksgiving, God’s redeeming work is deserving of special mention. Apart from redemption our hearts would be darkened and we would not be able to truly thank God for anything. This work of redemption started in eternity past, and continues until his return in glory.

Often, at Thanksgiving Day celebrations we find ourselves in mixed company. It is a national, secular holiday. Reading a prayer is a helpful way of articulating a doctrine of redemption in a fashion that might be slightly less personally offensive in mixed company, if it is introduced as a prayer used by the church in thanking God.

Sometimes we also find ourselves praying with extended family who nominally express faith in God but aren’t actively a part of a worshiping community. This prayer enumerates specific blessings of God’s saving work, and we should be prepared to reflect further on them if they become a point of dinnertime conversation.

And we look with great anticipation toward that day when You will raise us to life everlasting, glorified and confirmed in righteousness, so that we may sing Your praises without the defilement of our present weaknesses, distractions, and sins. 

Americans can sometimes slip into the error that the fullness of God’s blessings are known here and now in the U.S. of A. Our prayer reminds us that we look forward in “great anticipation” for God’s greatest blessings, and this confidence in future blessings is perhaps our greatest blessing.

Also, this prayer reminds us of the importance of confessing our sins, even in a prayer of thanksgiving. 

As You have given us these gifts, we ask that You would give us grateful hearts, so that we may serve our neighbors in love. 

Our gratitude is a result of God’s saving work in our hearts, and this saving work results in a grateful response toward God and neighbor. May this thanksgiving holiday serve as a spur and a reminder of how we are called to share God’s blessings with those around us.

This we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, who taught us to pray, saying: 

Our Father Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.
Amen.

Closing a prayer with the Lord’s Prayer is a wonderful way to invite all members of your Thanksgiving Day celebration to join their voices together. It is an invitation to pray to God.

Here’s a pro tip: you can give your group advanced warning that you’ll close with the Lord’s Prayer and prepare them to join you. Sometimes it’s worth mentioning whether you go with “debts” or “trespasses” to avoid a brief moment of awkwardness. 

By closing with the Lord’s Prayer, you may give a struggling sinner the opportunity to take their first stumbling steps to calling out to God for forgiveness. 

I still remember a number of years ago when I was praying at an ordinary family dinner. My father was not a churchgoing man, and I don’t think I had ever heard him pray. But when I closed with the Lord’s Prayer, he joined in, for it triggered a deep memory he had from his youth. It was one of the few times I ever heard him pray. 

Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.  

Amen.