The Tenebrae service begins with a service of prayers. After a brief musical interlude, you will hear a series of readings. Our reader will read select verses from Isaiah 53. Then Pastor Ken will read from the Gospel of Matthew chapters 26-27. After each of these, there follows a verse of a hymn on the piano or flute. We are including the words of these hymns for you to meditate on as you listen to the music and watch each one of the seven candles be extinguished on the altar, we encourage you to print these words.

As the service draws to a close and the last candle on the altar is extinguished. please extinguish the candle in your home.

As we are united in listening to the light of His word, so we are united in the darkness of our grief as well so in awe of our Lords’ great love for us.

Hymns are below the video.

You can listen to the service here

Or watch the video

1. Eat This Bread

   “Eat this bread, drink this cup, come to me and never be hungry.

    East this bread, drink this cup, trust in me and you will not thirst.”

2. Go to Dark Gethsemane

    Go to dark Gethsemane, all who feel the tempter’s pow’r,

    Your Redeemer’s conflict see. Watch with him one bitter hour;

    Turn not from his griefs away; learn from Jesus Christ to pray.

3. Ah, Holy Jesus

   Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended

that we to judge thee have in hate pretended?

By foes derided, by thine own rejected, O most afflicted.

4. Lamb of God

    Your gift of love we crucified. We laughed and

    scorned him as he died. The humble king we name a

    fraud and sacrificed the Lamb of God.

    Refrain: O Lamb of God, sweet Lamb of God, I love the holy Lamb of God.

    Oh, wash me in your precious blood, my Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

5. O Sacred Head, Now Wounded

    O sacred head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,

    now scornfully surrounded with thorns, thine only crown;

    O sacred head, what glory, what bliss till now was thine!

    Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call thee mine.

6. Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed

    Alas! And did my Savior bleed, and did my sovereign die?

    Would he devote that sacred head for sinners such as I?

    Was it for sins that I had done he groaned upon the tree?

    Amazing pity, grace unknown, and love beyond degree!

7. Were You There

    Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

    Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

    Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

    Were you there when they crucified my Lord?