Here’s a
prayer of confession for Good Friday from Carol Penner’s Leading in Worship blog.
Prayer of Confession
for Good Friday
Come unto me all ye
who labour and are heavy laden,
and I will give you
rest. (Matthew
11:28)
We come to
you, Jesus, burdened with our own sin.
Our own
calls for revenge and violence,
which may
or may not have included the words, “Crucify, crucify!”
Our own
betrayals, with or without the thirty pieces of silver.
Our own
denials, whether or not we have heard the cock crowing.
You know
the sins we carry, secretly or openly,
the way
they crush us, the weight of them.
We bring
these to your cross…*
You carry
our burdens, Lord.
These, the
simplest and gravest of sins,
are
magnified into organizations and systems,
amplified
in the actions of corporations and governments.
Selfishness,
revenge and violence unfold on the largest scale,
bringing
forth misery and destruction in our
world every day.
You carry
all of our burdens.
Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our
transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that
made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him the
iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6 NRSV)
*(Option: On entering the service, people are given a
small square of paper. Ask people now to
write their name on the paper, and to think for a quiet moment about the burden
of their own sins. They are then
invited to come forward and nail their paper to a large wooden cross placed on
the floor of the sanctuary…there are hammers and nails provided by the
cross. When everyone who wants to do
this has participated, the cross is raised up, so that it is visible to all.)
~ written
by Carol Penner, and posted on http://carolpenner.typepad.com/leadinginworship/2011/04/good-friday-prayer-of-confession.html
