Good Friday Stations of the Cross with Music

This Good Friday we changed around our Stations of the Cross format a little. We went with 12 stations from the art collective sanctifiedart.org, so a couple less than usual, and added 2 full minutes of meditation time between each one, with original music in the background by our own Stuart Oliver. Here’s an edited version of the recording with only the Bible readings and the meditation music.

If you’d like to see the full, original service see below. Note: the pastor left his mic off during the sermon, so it’s really faint - just picked up on room mics. Everything else is good.

Has God really Forsaken Us? - Good Friday sermon 2023

When Jesus says on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," we should take him seriously, that he means that he feels abandoned by God, and that it is more than just a figure of speech. But if it's a real cry of anger and frustration and doubt, what does that mean for how Jesus saw himself in God's plan? Good Friday 2023. Pastor Lars Hammar

The Ordinariness of Jesus' Death - Good Friday sermon

Unlike how we see it depicted in movies, Jesus’ death was probably not the grand event that captivated the whole nation and had crowds and crowds out to see. In fact, in the Roman Empire, killing people who were threats to the social order was very common, routine, and done on a daily basis. Pontius Pilate, who had the final say over Jesus’ execution, was a ruthless killer who could take out hundreds or thousands at a time without remorse. What should shock us about the cross is that it is both horrifying in its cruelty, and ordinary in its execution. By Pastor Lars Hammar

Good Friday - April 10, 2020

For Good Friday this year, we recorded our Stations of the Cross liturgy that would normally be done in person. The format was the same, except that I added the stripping of the altar at the beginning of the recording, when it normally would have happened Maundy Thursday. I wanted to set the scene and catch people up.

This is the sermon for the day, which focuses, as always, on the dynamics of Jesus’ trial and the injustice of his sentencing and execution.

The full service is on YouTube, and I posted the link here, so you can watch the whole thing. Thanks to Brian Clymer for being the second reader and to Phyllis Teager for the “space music” in the background. Thanks to Todd Martin for the hymn and to Michael Schultz for painting the stations.