Being woken up in the (relatively) small hours by the sound of my work mobile phone was guaranteed to set my heart thumping... it turned out to be something easily resolved, of no pastoral and very little practical significance, but it did mean I was up, dressed and out of the house before 5 a.m., which felt a rather strange start to Good Friday.

If the Biblical narrative is anything to go by, the early hours of Good Friday saw people being awoken by people hammering on their doors, demanding action, a trial, an execution... Blearly-eyed, adrenalin-driven repectable people dragged from slumber to act, and act now.  And Jesus, kept up all night, his heart broken, his body weary, his end now self-evident ,dragged from pillar to post and back again, all before anyone gets to Golgotha, and mostly whilst the majority of folk are sleeping.

Good Friday is a strange day, we never quite know how to mark it - in some places Walks of Witness continue, in others Messy Church, in others vigils; in some ecumenical, in others single traditions... and so on.  We centre on the cross, and rightly so, but today I am reminded of those who were dragged from slumber and thrust into a fast-paced, bewildering, unstoppable chain of events that would end in ways they'd never have imagined the night before.

Up-all-night God,

There in the garden

In the courtyard

On the road

At the trials

Hearing the voices

Alert to the ridicule

Seeing the beating...

You are always present with us in our own night-times

Whether we slumber peacefully

Sleep fitfully

Or toss and turn anxiously

You know and understand

How adrenalin affects us

Fight or flight or freeze

Pumped up or pulled down

And you are with us

Today help me be aware

Of those who find themselves

Propelled or compelled

Into situations

Or conversations

Or decisions

That trigger these instincts

Help me to be aware of my own responses,

Of their potential for good or ill.

And, as we look to the cross

As we wonder and worry

As we marvel

As we are disgusted

As we struggle

Stay close in the deep darkness of broad daylight

And give us your peace.