Good Friday prepares for Resurrection

By Claudia M. Williams
Staff Writer
Christians think about the unthinkable today: that one man would suffer brutally for all humanity.
Good Friday marks Jesus’ crucifixion, death and burial.
In church sanctuaries across Southwest Texas, crosses and altars are covered in mourning black. Candles are extinguished, as the life that was the light of the world was extinguished.
Christians await the fulfillment of a great promise: the Easter resurrection of Jesus Christ Sunday.
United Methodist congregations across the Southwest Texas Conference have planned Good Friday and Easter services to help people observe the two most holy days of the Christian calendar.
First UMC, San Benito, has planned a Shadows of the Cross service at dusk tonight. The service is a variation on the traditional Tenebrae service, said the Rev. Jason E. Adams, pastor.
“We’ll be lighting candles as we hear the stories of each of the apostles joining Jesus Christ in his ministry,” Adams said. “And then, we’ll extinguish them as the Passion is read and the apostles fall away.”
Celebrants are to place their purple stoles on the altar at the conclusion of the service. Celebrants are then to pick up their stoles—now white—from the altar and don them Sunday morning at the beginning of the Easter celebration.
Veribest UMC plans to create a flowering cross for public display.
“The cross we use during Lent is made of wood from our live Christmas tree,” said Pastor Leigh Gregg. “We wrap the cross in chicken wire before we drape it on Good Friday and place it on the altar. It’s a symbol of the emptiness left behind when Christ died.”
The empty cross in the dark sanctuary is to be illuminated Sunday morning for Easter, she said, and the drape ceremoniously removed. Then the procession of flowers is to begin.
“The congregation brings flowers to stick through the chicken wire to decorate the cross,” Gregg said. “What had been stark in death is now blooming with life, and we carry the flowering cross outside.”
In Victoria, the noon Good Friday service at First UMC is to be a sensory experience—the sounds of the Passion woven into scripture readings.
“Imagine the quiet of the Garden of Gesthemine broken by the sound of boots stomping as the soldiers come to arrest Jesus,” said Associate Pastor Marilyn Roeder. “The whipping as Jesus is tried by Pilate, the hammering of the nails as Jesus is hung on the cross, the cock crowing as Peter denies Jesus and the stone being rolled into place at the tomb—all of these sounds will amplify the experience.”
Easter morning the 1,364-member Victoria congregation is to celebrate a sunrise service of resurrection with Holy Communion at Memorial Park Cemetery.
First UMC, Kingsville, plans to display large still images from The Passion of The Christ with the Stations of the Cross today, said the Rev. J. Jason Fry, pastor. He intended to screen the movie for the community last night after a Maundy Thursday communion service.
In Port Isabel, destination of snowbirds and spring breakers alike, First UMC plans what Pastor Mike McLaughlin calls a “California sunrise” Easter service.
“I believe we’ll have a larger turnout if we have ‘sunrise’ later in the morning,” McLaughlin said. “So our sunrise service will be at 8:30 a.m.—which is 6:30 a.m., sunrise in California.”