Coty Pinckney No event in history is more important than the cross of Jesus Christ. Yet the world around us distracts us from this great act of love and justice, of mercy and punishment. Thus we need times of intentional focus on this theme. In addition to our services Friday evening and Sunday morning, please take time this week to focus on the cross, and all that it entails.
Here are some resources to help you do that.
The scriptural accounts: We will read Mark’s account of the cross and the resurrection at our services. Read the other accounts also: Matthew 26-27, Luke 22-23, and John 18-19.
Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion: I have spent many a Good Friday afternoon listening to this masterpiece, which includes all of the text of Matthew’s account as well as various hymns and meditations. There are numerous recordings available on YouTube and the usual music apps. Listen especially to the account of Jesus’ dying on the cross and its immediate aftermath beginning at 5:30 of this video, and continuing to the first 2:15 minutes of this video. The links include English subtitles for the German lyrics; the text is from Matthew 27:45-54. Some consider Bach’s rendition of the centurion’s cry, “Truly this was the Son of God” the most beautiful piece in the entirety of western music.
John Piper’s narrative poem, “Pilate’s Wife”: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Pastor John wrote these poems for Advent in 2002, a few weeks after Beth and I moved to this area; I read parts to our fledgling church plant that year. Here is an excerpt from the end of part 1.
Come, children, take your fire, and light
This advent candle one. For bright
And blazing is our hope and deep
Desire that all the world would leap
To know the truth that Christ destroys
False worlds that he might fill with joys.
To know the truth that massacres
Might be forgiv’n and one who errs
A thousand times may find at last
That all his horrid sins are cast
Into the deep, and Christ, by grace,
Has made his massacre a place
Of life where even those who scorned
His face, may be with life adorned.
Bob Chilcott’s St John’s Passion. This piece, first performed in 2013, is new for me this year. In the tradition of Bach’s passions, Chilcott includes all of John’s account, intermixing the English text with hymns written between the 5th and 19th centuries. The music is all new. You can read the biblical and hymn texts via this pdf file and listen to the one-hour performance here. The musical setting for When I Survey the Wondrous Cross – the closing piece – is exceptionally beautiful. Here are the texts of three of the other hymns Chilcott uses, with links to the recordings:
Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle by Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530–c. 600), translated by Percy Dearmer (1867–1936)
Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,
Sing the ending of the fray;
Now above the Cross, the trophy,
Sound the loud triumphant lay:
Tell how Christ, the world’s Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.
God in pity saw man fallen,
Shamed and sunk in misery,
When he fell on death by tasting
Fruit of the forbidden tree;
Then another tree was chosen
Which the world from death should free.
Jesu, grant me this, I pray, 17th century Latin, translated by Henry Williams Baker (1821–77)
Jesu, grant me this, I pray,
Ever in thy heart to stay;
Let me evermore abide
Hidden in thy wounded side.
If the evil one prepare,
Or the world, a tempting snare,
I am safe when I abide
In thy heart and wounded side.
If the flesh, more dangerous still,
Tempt my soul to deeds of ill,
Naught I fear when I abide
In thy heart and wounded side.
Death will come one day to me;
Jesu, cast me not from thee:
Dying let me still abide
In thy heart and wounded side
There is a green hill far away by Cecil Frances Alexander (1818–95)
There is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all,
Who died to save us all.
We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains he had to bear,
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there,
He hung and suffered there.
He died that we might be forgiv’n,
He died to make us good,
That we might go at last to heav’n,
Saved by his precious blood,
Saved by his precious blood.
Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved,
And we must love him too,
And trust in his redeeming blood,
And try his works to do,
And try his works to do.
May our Lord work though His Word, His church, and the musical gifts He has given us to highlight our sinfulness that necessitates the cross, and thereby to magnify the riches of His grace poured out on us through the death, resurrection, ascension, and return of our Lord Jesus, so that we as His people might endure in faith in Him, boasting only in the cross, Good Friday after Good Friday after Good Friday, until He returns.