Holy Week... there are how many services?!

You are invited to come and explore the drama of Holy Week in a spiritually enriching series of worship events. Come and experience the story that moves us from Jesus' celebrated' entrance into Jerusalem to his Last Supper with his friends, to his crucifixion, and then to remembering the stories of faith as we wait for the resurrection. Pastor Katie, David, and Keith explore what these holy moments have meant for them in their own faith lives. 

Learn more about St. John Lutheran Church at stjohnchurchmars.org or follow us on Facebook.

Scripture quotations from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. © Copyright 2011 COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to this very special edition of Facets of Faith, where instead of reading a specific scripture section, we talk about the services of Holy Week. We talk about the overarching story of Holy Week and that last week from Jesus' last moments with his friends, his last supper, his crucifixion, and the space that we create to dwell in that story and to feel and experience the divine presence in those stories through the services at St. John. So I hope you hear a bit of good news, a bit of curiosity in this session, and I hope that it invites you into exploring this special week for yourself. So Monday and Thursday, we start with the Last Supper with the Friends, and then Good Friday is all trial and crucifixion, and then Easter Vigil is kind of this waiting, dwelling period as we just kind of remember the story of salvation across the ages before we can celebrate the resurrection. Because, like we were saying earlier, we've got to have the whole story in our mind to be able to get the story. And so even just looking at just Last Supper, crucifixion, resurrection, we're missing out because we're missing out on everything that led to that. And I remember the first time I was told that there's no benediction on Monday, Thursday, or Good Friday. The benediction is those kind of parting words of go in peace to love and serve the Lord or whatever it is. And I had never really even noticed that it was missing because the service just flowed and it felt always like there was like a weird ending to it. But I never put my finger on it until someone said there's no benediction because it's all one service. We do confession and forgiveness with individual absolution at Monday Thursday, and then there's no confession and forgiveness on Good Friday. We do communion on Monday Thursday, and then there's no communion on Good Friday. And so there's this sense of it is one huge service because that's what it takes.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Yeah, I I can remember oh lots of different experiences with with uh Maundy Thursday, or some listeners from other traditions might call it Holy Thursday, but um I I now I like the term Maundy Thursday because of what Maund Day means, you know, the mandate. And and I had never growing up never had had that connection to it. But I remember um the the area the piece called the foot washing. And a long time ago I was teaching in a program where we had a lot of uh high school and early college youth coming to learn about liturgy and music, and as one of the um pieces of having a a simple dinner, we had a like almost a mandatum kind of a thing, where as they came in, we as the teachers greeted them at the door and washed their feet. And then as there might have been eight or ten of them, and then they we got up, they then took our positions, and they started washing the feet of others coming in. And so it was this kind of passing on down of what this this whole idea of um this is what I call you to do, you know, of service and humble service.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah, because I it it's right in the scripture um that Jesus commands us to love one another as he has loved us, and we pull that out of context sometimes, but that's with that's within the context of washing his disciples' feet, of serving, of humbling himself before them, of taking that care and and attention to each individual and to care for their needs and and all of that. And so that's for Jesus what that looks like to love one another is to be in service to one another and to care for one another. And as I was preparing to think about how we were gonna structure like Palm Passion Sunday and where I could sneak in a couple reflections and things like that, I was realizing just how frequently, in both Matthew and John, because I was trying to decide which one we should do, um, in both of them, you're it's we miss so much of the story because we read so much story. And because I was looking back over some of our old scripts and things like that, and I was wondering how many people actually remember some of the details that are in these stories. My guess is not many. Not to not to you know call anyone out or to minimize the way people remember things, but when you're reading two chapters at a time, you can only remember so much. And because like Matthew's story of the crucifixion, that's the one that includes um Judas repenting of what he had done and feeling awful and hanging himself. And I read that in the in the actual you know Bible, and I was like, is that really in the script? Do we actually talk about Judas hanging himself in church? And I've been hearing this story for 30-some years. Like I grew up with these stories. And the answer is yes, it is in the little script we pass out to everybody. And I just totally I've glossed over that for years because there's so much happening, it's hard to listen for that long, it's which is why we break it up because we need to break it up because our brains need a second to catch up with what we're hearing. Um because there's just there's just so much to talk about here. We're I mean, we're covering several days within the span of one worship service, whereas typically we cover you know, a five-minute conversation.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

And if we're looking at the Trudum, I mean we're looking at um those events over three days, or supposedly three days. It could have been longer. Um, but you know, now we're looking at supposedly different pieces of that in in our individual services as one service. And that that's hard for the brain to even try to grasp and pull all together.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

And that I mean, because that's exactly why we do that, because that way we can separate the story out into smaller, more digestible chunks. We first start with talking just about Jesus um having that last supper with his friends, and what that must have been like when he says, I know what's coming. And this is again where it's different between the Gospels, because in John, Jesus is very much, I know what's coming, and I'm walking towards it. John's not pointing backwards.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

John's pointing at Jesus. Jesus is divinity.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Yeah, so and that's but that's again where like it's interesting to put them side by side because Matthew is all about pointing back and fitting Jesus into what the Hebrew scriptures had expected and what the he what the Jewish people knew about God and the way God worked. Whereas John is of much more theological text, John is pointing at the signs of Jesus' divinity, John is looking into belief as relationship, as dwelling. Dwelling's a big theme in John. And so for Jesus to enter into Jerusalem, it's not, it's just not as important to John because it's not about that victorious entry. It's John is all about Jesus as the word incarnate, the word made flesh. And so this is just a practical part of the story of and this is how we got there. How he gets there, right? Exactly. Yeah. So I mean it's it's fascinating to put them side by side, just because you do see some of those differences of not only how the stories interrelate, but also some of those theologies. And then we need all four because without all four, we miss parts of the story. Because without John, we miss the incredible nature of God's word made flesh and Jesus' divinity and um this inevitability of uh resurrection and all this stuff. We miss a lot of the relationship that is important to belief. But without Matthew, we lose all of that looking back and how Jesus is not necessarily something totally out of the blue, but in keeping with what the Jewish people have always known. So we need all four. But unfortunately, there's only one Palm Sunday, only one Good Friday, only one Easter.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

And in the tradition that I grew up in, um, you know, we did not have a lot of biblical historical perspective, and so the whole idea of what happened on Monday, Thursday, Holy Thursday, of the recreation of uh the Passover, um, I did not realize how much of a connection there was and what it then became in terms of how we celebrate our liturgy with Eucharist and how that whole Passover is now embodied in Christ and his Passover from death into new life and bringing us into that new life, into the new kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

See, this is where once again I kind of wish we had like four Maundy Thursdays, uh maybe even just two, one for John and one for everybody else. Because we will read uh John on Monday Thursday, and John's gospel has the washing of the feet. I mean, we don't actually do that part, but we do individual absolution and that kind of stuff to recognize that. And so, but in Matthew, because Matthew is the one who's always looking back at uh the way that Jesus fits into what we know of uh Hebrew scriptures and the God of the Israelites and all that kind of stuff. Um, this is from Mark Powell's book on Matthew. And in Deuteronomy 16, 3, when they're talking about celebrating the Passover, when they're talking about what this would look like and the words you say, because there's very specific words you say, the religious leader would say, This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate. And so there's an entry in an introduction to the bread. And then Jesus instead picks up the bread and says, This is my body, which would have been kind of a quick um what moment for the disciples. But then, though I love the way Paul says this, he says, Thus a meal that commemorated the sufferings of Israel that eventuated in freedom from slavery came to commemorate the sufferings of the Messiah that led to freedom from slavery of another kind, aka captivity to sin. And so this idea of this is a meal of freedom and salvation fits with Passover, and that's how Matthew's framing it too for Jesus. And that's then how we as Christians now take the Last Supper, take the Holy Communion as a meal of salvation, a meal of grace, a meal of new life. Well, I've been thinking too about how can we help people walk through Holy Week? Because if we we kind of had, I always think of Palm Passion Sunday as kind of like the cliff notes version of Holy Week. We throw everything out there and people collect what they can and it's fast and it's quick and it covers the bases. But then all of Holy Week, including Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, there are readings that help us slow the story down and really dwell in the magnitude of what it is for the word incarnate to step into the tomb and come out with new life. Um and that's more, I mean, we do a lot with worship with our three days with Monday, Thursday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. We do a lot with all of that, but there's so much more that happens, so much more depth we could have, but that has to happen in the home. And so I'm just trying to think of ways that we can help people walk through all of that. Not to be a downer, but to help us realize the richness of this story so that when we get to the Easter resurrection, when we get to the celebration of Jesus rising from the dead, we realize that it's not just about, you know, Jesus was dead and now he's alive. It's about all of this story is coming to a head in this moment. The entirety of all four Gospels is to point to the resurrection. That's the entire point of every single gospel. And so this week of Holy Week is meant to help us prepare and think about what is the whole story? What is everything that we are carrying into this resurrection moment so that when we hear about the tomb is empty, it means more than just the body's not there. It means that everything is coming to a head in this moment. Life is coming to be in this moment in a way that it has never been before. And we've had glimpses of it for however many chapters of the gospel, but this moment is what it's all about. And I think to get the impact of that, you do need a nice slow week of reflection. And then it's helpful then, after Easter celebration, when you're sitting at the Easter table, to look back and say, what does this mean? Why does this matter? Let's talk about it. Um and I don't know that people are necessarily equipped to do that without some help from the church. And maybe that's a failing that we've had that we don't do a great job of helping people through that.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Well, from my perspective, like as a growing up in not as so not as a Lutheran growing up in a different tradition. I honestly can't remember going to celebrating the holy week, the Monty, Thursday, Good Friday, Easter vigil, right? It was Palm Sunday, fast forward to Easter. And that was very much like receiving the message as the tip of the iceberg, right? And I had no vision of what lied beneath the surface of the water. And it wasn't until I joined the Lutheran faith and I and I started celebrating Monday, Thursday, Good Friday Easter visual where I started to get that deeper understanding. And I can say confidently now that I feel like every Sunday, every Easter Sunday, we sort of do the same thing, but as I now participate in the Holy Week services, when I come when we get to Easter Sunday, it's always 69 degrees and sunny. Because that it not because not because I know that that is true, but that's the way that it feels. It feels like spring. It feels wonderful and new and and warm but not hot. And just amazing. It's just an amazing day. And I know that I I know that it's rained on Easter Sunday, I know that it sometimes has snowed on Easter Sunday, but it just always seems to be this flip of a light switch, if you will, and it's just a different vibe. Yeah. And that's because of the the things that we do for leading up to it. And then how much deeper it could even go. Like so now the iceberg, the tip of the iceberg is a little bit bigger for me personally. What else lies beneath the surface? What other things, how much slower should can could we take the story to really identify and make that light switch moment from Easter visual to Sunday morning, you know, Easter Sunday morning, even more profound.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

I remember my first recollection of Good Friday. Um, I was a child, and I w I was talking to my mother about it, and she said, Well, why don't you go to church and see what it's like? And I actually went on my own. And I got there a little bit late, and during um, it was when we were doing the traditional ten prayers of of uh praying for the church, praying for the world, and in Latin, they would say, you know, they would they would do let us kneel, let us pray, let us stand, and it was it was a lot of gestures kind of thing. And I also remember in the tradition I grew up in, if there were statuary in the church, they were all covered, like after Palm Sunday, Passion Sunday, the statuary was covered, and then that was another visual symbol that something's different. And so on Easter Vigil, then all of the the shrouds were taken off of the statuaries, and then you you you saw things in a different way. So there was some visual, some some auditory kinds of you know, signals that hey, this is a different kind of a ceremony and service.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah, and we we actually do I mean we're not quite as that because we don't have the statuary and whatnot, but we follow also, I wasn't thinking about that, the worship arts and the way the visual space changes. Yeah. Um because on very bare. Yeah, so Monday Thursday at the end of the service, as we reflect on kind of what is what has happened and what is to come, we prepare the space for Good Friday by removing everything from the chancel, from the area in front of the church where we hold most of the service, and it's just a bare altar in the front, and it's very stark. And we put a single cross at the front, and it's this massive cross, what, seven feet tall, something like that. And we just lean it against the altar so that when you come in on Good Friday, you're faced with that. Like that is what is before you. And then we slowly, throughout the service of the Satanabre service, we go from light and we slowly darken the entire space, so that it's not just the readings that carry you into the crucifixion, it's the visual nature of the entire space. And then we leave and it's dark and it's quiet, and people, whether we're told to or not, there's usually a sense of hushness and whispering as people leave. And then on Easter Vigil, we don't necessarily have that same vibe when we come in because we've had a whole day of life, but we start with meeting around a fire, and we start with the lights in the space are dimmer, and we start with telling the stories, and then we slowly but surely increase the uh nature of joy of the songs. We we slowly get to more celebratory readings, and we then get to the resurrection where during um I think it was the there was a song after the gospel or before the gospel somewhere there, where we actually took everything back out. And so when you came in on Easter Vigil, things were still bare because we were still in mourning at that time. And as we proclaimed the new life of Christ, we redecorated. We put the parents on the altar, we brought the flowers out and all that kind of stuff, because that way you can participate in not just static moments of the story, but the development of the story as it happens.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

That's why sometimes I feel a little bad for folks who say, Well, I don't need to go to church, I can pray, I can just read my my Bible and things like that. And I think, yes, there's definitely merit to that, but I think if you if you miss being part of the service, then you miss a lot of uh the depth that you can get from all three parts Monday, Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Virgil, and eventually Easter. And so those sensory kinds of things help us engage deeper. Like we said a couple of weeks ago, we we experience the human, no, we we encounter the human, experience the divine. And so during those those parts of that one service, all three parts, that's where I feel like we start to experience the divine.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Thank you again for joining us for this special edition of Facets of Faith, exploring the power of Holy Week. We encourage you to seek out places of worship, whether it is St. John or somewhere close to you, where you can experience the power of Holy Week in the special three days of services of the Triduum of Monday Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and ultimately Easter Sunday. Because we know how deeply impactful these stories have been on our own faith and our own lives, and we are excited to share that with you and excited to invite you into that same space where you can encounter the human and experience the divine of Jesus last week before his death and resurrection. And let us end our time together with a word of prayer. Good and gracious God, we give you thanks for the ways that you speak to us, for the ways your spirit breathes into and among us, and we pray that you lift us up and carry us through this week, that we might hear the power of your story, the story of the way that you have saved your people from the beginning of time until the end of time. We pray that you move us and inspire us to worship you in these holy days. In your most precious and holy name we pray. Amen.