The liturgy for Good Friday that we follow is called the Tenebrae service, which is the service of darkness. There are different ways it can be arranged. A traditional one of the seven words from the cross. We have in the past followed something like the final stations of the cross. This year, looking at Luke whose year it is, we arranged it as a triptych. The above is my hack attempt at that.
The meditations look at what fails us, and then what hope is available in each scene. In the Garden of Gethsemane, it is personal failures. Failures of friends and associates and even the temptation of the self of our human nature. The hope is that prayer is always there. And God answers prayer. Maybe not how we would like, but he walks with us through the trials. The trials themselves are the failure of our institutions. Knowing our personal failures we invest our hope in groups. These too fail us, at exactly the time we need them. The hope is that while we often run from the truth, God brings the Truth out, even when we don’t like it. And it is the Truth that wins. And that points to the center panel, the crucifixion. There we find our real hope.
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