This Sydney Carter song, “Friday Morning”, is clearly suited to a Good Friday “Forsaken by God” service to mark the end of an Atheism for Lent Course. When we held such a service at Journey last year, one of our very talented musicians, David Waring, stood up and sang this a cappella, with the rest of us joining in for the choruses:

It was on a Friday morning that they took me from the cell, and I saw they had a carpenter to crucify as well. You can blame it on to Pilate, you can blame it on the Jews, you can blame it on the Devil, but it’s God I accuse.

Chorus: “It’s God they ought to crucify, instead of you and me,” I said to the carpenter a-hanging on the tree.

You can blame it on to Adam, you can blame it on to Eve, you can blame it on the apple, but that I can’t believe. It was God that made the Devil, the woman and the man, and there wouldn’t be an apple, if it wasn’t in the plan.

Now Barabbas was a killer, and they let Barabbas go. But you are being crucified for nothing here below. But God is up in heaven, and he doesn’t do a thing, with a million angels watching, and they never move a wing.

“To hell with Jehovah,” to the carpenter I said. “I wish that a carpenter had made this world instead. Goodbye and good luck to you. Our way will soon divide. Remember me in heaven, the man you hung beside.”