Good Friday services bring local churches together to celebrate Christ

On Friday, April 18, churches from across Malta will come together and show their unity under the banner of Jesus Christ and to remember and honor the journey to the cross that Jesus took.

The Good Friday walk is the fourth annual Cross Walk and Good Friday Reflection Service in Malta, and the idea of the different churches in Malta coming together for the event was brought up by Dani Hill of Promises about three years ago.

“The ministers agreed that it would be a great thing to do,” said Pastor Steven Heppner of Elim Lutheran Brethren Church.

Over the past three years the attendance for the event has fluctuated depending on the weather, but generally 15-to-30 people are in attendance.

To Pastor Heppner, the message of the event is “Jesus said ‘pick up your cross and follow me,” said Pastor Heppner. “To symbolically carry the cross as Jesus carried the cross across town.”

Pastor Heppner said that during the walk it is a time to reflect on the historical fact that Jesus did carry the cross to his own death and that He calls Pastor Heppner to lay down “all encumbrances, all distractions and die to my own sins with the hope of being raised to an eternal life. And that as He died for me, which I can’t do for myself, he did for me.”

Pastor Joe Haney of Grace Fellowship Church in Malta said that he looks to a passage in Luke 23-26 when he thinks of the Cross Walk.

“And as they led him away, they laid hold on a certain Simon, a Cyrenian, coming from the field, and put the cross upon him to bear it behind Jesus,” read Pastor Haney.

“I just look at that as being significant because he was the one who helped aid and carry the cross,” said Pastor Haney. “I just look at that as one small way we, as Christians, can bear that responsibility to our community.”

Pastor Heppner added that in a small community such as Malta, the minister’s faults and sins are obvious.

“I wish to make the statement of willingness to repent of my flaws,” he said. “And hopefully, people will see that it is only Jesus that can forgive them. I wouldn’t want to ask that those I have offended to pay for my sins, but that they could see I do not stand as somebody holier than anyone else.”

It is the two pastors hope that everyone in attendance will carry the cross for a few feet or blocks. Pastor Heppner said that at times during past walks that parents and children will carry the cross as a family.

“When Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, the commitment he made to go to the cross was something we can’t imagine,” said Pastor Haney. “And in that experience, we all in a lesser way, just think Lord, I appreciate you have done for me.”

Pastor Heppner said that in the past the procession has had a police escort and that other times the group has gotten a slew of different reactions from folks passing by.

“Some are really puzzled,” he said. “Others are really understanding. Other seems to say ‘weird’.”

Pastor Haney said that the Cross Walk is a way for people to bring their secular and sacred lives to come together in a public way.

“This is a minor way, and you do it through your whole life,” he said. “But to me it is important that the churches in Malta are making a statement that we want to follow in Christ’s footsteps, but in a smaller way. No one can experience what he did. It’s neat to see the churches doing it together. Not every pastor goes on the Cross Walk, but everyone is at the service and plays their part in it. To me that is just showing the unity under the Banner of Christ.”

The Phillips County Ministerial Association is hosting its annual Cross Walk and Good Friday Reflection Service Friday, April 18. The Cross Walk Begins from the parking lot adjacent to the National Guard Armory at 11:15 and the Good Friday Reflective worship begins at Kirkwood Memorial Chapel at noon.