Good Friday People

Today we start a  poetic journey inspired by Shiela Cassidy’s Book - Good Friday People

“His state was divine, 

yet he did not cling 

to his equality with God, 

but emptied himself 

to assume the condition of a slave, 

and became as we are.” 

 Philippians 2:6

In her book Good Friday people  Author: Sheila Cassidy looks at the vulnerability of those she had met and through the book she introduces us to her Good Friday people.  She also challenges us to walk with them as far as you dare. She says “ sharing their pain, humiliation and despair you will be sharing perhaps more deeply than ever before in the Jesus story.“

“More than anything I have learned that we are all frail people, vulnerable and wounded; it is just that some of us are more clever at concealing it than others! And of course the great joke is that it is O.K. to be frail and wounded because that is the way the almighty transcendent God made people…. and what about Jesus, God made man, Emmanuel, God-with- us. What was he like? We are told again and again that he was a man like us in all things but sin, so perhaps the crucial thing in understanding what he was like ….  Was he always sweet-tempered? It seems no. for he vented a good deal of holy anger on the unfortunate merchants in the temple.” Sheila Cassidy - Good Friday People

A Man like us, in mortal frame,

How could this be, what is God’s aim

That he should walk our cobbled streets

And touch our live’s with his heartbeat?

O Christ who touches this my soul

When even into depths I go,

Raise up me now, that I might see

Your beauty come alive in me.

What kind of sacred power is this

That bows so low the earth to kiss,

Whose wounded hands stretch out to reach

To rescue, save; through love you teach

The sacred truth, the promised word;

Incarnate, lived, your way now heard,

That lowly hearts your grace might know

As latent seed within to grow. 

What kind of man you ask is this?

What foolish notion, what the gist

That purposed, in the mind of God

To stoop so low, to tread earth’s sod?

Yet cautiously,  how can I claim

The peace of Christ’s own sacred name

That wills my sight, that feeds my soul

And by his death renews, make whole.

O Christ of every human road,

O burden bearer on each load,

In truth my heart burns on the way

Though dimmed my sight by doubts betrayed.  

And as you walk beside me now,

O Man of sorrows come allow

My heart to lift from its deep place

And see the beauty of your face.

(c) 2022 Paul Collings

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God,

show us your face.

We long to know you, in spirit and in truth,

for you are the Way to freedom.

Teach us to love your  people,

as you and the Father love them,

to be slow to anger and rich in mercy

Help us to understand ourselves,

to cherish your life within us

that we may become as you were,

a place of refuge for the lonely, the wounded and the

sinner. Amen