The following is an excerpt from much longer piece that I edited and updated from a classic manual of piety from early seventeenth century England. Feel free to make use of this in any way that will be helpful to the body of Christ. Two requests: mention where your got it and don’t make money from it. If you would like to see the entire piece, which is considerably longer than this selection, let me know.
An Excerpt from:
A Solemn Colloquy Between Us and Our Savior
{adapted by Gary A. Chorpenning from The Practice of Piety (1611) by Lewis Bayly}
Minister: Come, friends, speak to your Lord Christ.
People: Why was it that you were condemned even though nothing could be proved against you? (Mt. 27:24; John 19:6)
Christ: So that you might know that it was not for my faults but for yours that I suffered.
People: Lord, why were you taken to suffer outside the city? (Mt. 27:33; Heb. 8:12)
Christ: Because in that way I bring you to rest in the heavenly city.
People: Lord, why did they force Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the fields, to carry your cross? (Lk. 23:26; Mt. 27:32)
Christ: Both to show you how dreadfully heavy the burden of your sin is and to display for all Christians that the path in from the fields of this world to the heavenly Jerusalem involve bearing one’s cross.
People: Lord why were you stripped of all your garments? (John 19:23)
Christ: So that I might show you how I forsook everything in order to redeem you.
People: Lord, why did you allow yourself to be lifted up on the cross? (John 12: 32)
Christ: In order that I might lift you up with me to heaven.
People: Lord, why did you have to hang on the accursed tree? (Gal. 3:13)
Christ: In order to make atonement for your sin committed by eating the fruit of a forbidden tree. (Gen. 2:17)
People: Lord, why did you hang between two thieves? (Lk. 23:33)
Christ: In order that you might have a place among the heavenly angels.
People: Lord, why were your hands and feet nailed to the cross? (Ps. 22:16; John 20:25)
Christ: In order to enlarge your hands to do works of righteousness and to set your feet at liberty to walk in the ways of peace.
People: Lord, why did they crucify you at Golgotha, the place of dead men’s skulls? (Mt. 27:33)
Christ: In order to assure you that my death brings life to those who are dead.
Minister: Let us pray.
People: Forbid, O God, that amid our earthly comforts, we should forget the pains and mortal anguish that our Lord Jesus endured for our salvation. Grant us a true vision of all that he suffered in his betrayal, his lonely agony, his false trial, his mocking and scourging, and the torture of his death upon the cross. As he gave himself entirely for us, may we give ourselves entirely for him, our only Lord and Savior. Amen.
Adaptation © 2010 Gary A. Chorpenning
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