A Good Friday Prayer - Psalm 22

My God, Our God, sometimes we find the words of your Son upon our lips:

Why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping us?

Do you not hear us calling out to you?

In long days and even longer nights, we cry out to you but so often we receive no answer; we find no relief.

The rest of the year we hear stories from your scripture of how others cried out and were saved.

But tonight we feel the full burden of our helplessness as we see Jesus,our friend, our brother, mocked, scourged, and killed upon the cross.

Those of the world mock us for believing in what seems like foolishness, that God became like us to be killed for all our wrongdoing.

You are the God of our childlike faith, but now that we are older, doubt assails us from all sides.

Those who do not believe in you grow in boldness every year.

Our bodies and minds age and fail us.

Our nation struggles economically.

Nations war against nations—people against people.

Suffering and death surround us.

Civility passes by the way side.

Friends turn against friends.

Religious communities are rend apart.

Hypocrisy abounds.

In our darkest days the Evil One works in our midst scattering us as the disciples were.

But into your hands, O Lord, we commend our entire selves.

We trust in your Son.

We trust in what we memorialize this day, his mighty act on the cross.

Even when we cannot hear your voice, sense you are listening, or feel your presence, we trust and know you are with us, that you hear our cries to you, and that you continue to speak to us through your Holy Spirit.

So we praise you together as a congregation.

We tell the story of your love to all we can, in every way we can, for as long as we can, so that people from around the world may turn to The Christ--the one who has freed us from the power of sin and death.