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Leader: Look at these hands! They will soon be pierced by nails and the sins

of all people. Can they see what they've done? Do they see the humiliation,

the pain? The devastating disappointment?

Yes, I have fallen. I will probably fall again - as will they.

My Father, I have not been able to make them love you.

I have healed their sick. I have raised their dead. I have loved them as they have never been loved. Still, I could not make them love you.

But, my Father, this is how we will do it. I will die for them.

My death will show them what I have tried so hard to teach them.

This is how much you love them.

Forgive them, Father. Your will be done.

Leader: Lord God, You are our Father too. When we stumble, you raise us up. Give us grace to fall without despair, and to lift up others who also fall on the journey we make towards our own death. Remind us that Jesus' story did not end at the cross, nor will ours.

All: Amen