 |
| We are an Easter People |
A pastor friend told me yesterday, "This is the Lentiest Lent ever!" I couldn't agree more. Rather than gathering together for the celebration of Palm Sunday, we find ourselves gathering in living rooms watching services on computer screens. We are a day away from Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Church families usually gather together in worship experiences that serve to express the sober gravity, anxiety, and grief that accompanied the Last Supper with Jesus, and the fullness of his suffering and crucifixion. This year, however, every day is filled with some measure of that disorienting sadness, that uncertainty of the future. We will not be able to gather in one place for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, or even Easter Sunday morning.
This year, we will be joining together with our brothers and sisters across the Conference to worship God like we never have before. Here is the link to the Conference web page with the resources for this Holy Week, and with the link to the Easter morning services that you will be able to stream live. Before you click on this link, I invite you to read my introduction below. After you click on the link, you can scroll down to find the documents on the conference web page and save them to your device or print them out for your use. I encourage you to share your experiences of these worship service on social media as a testimony to the grace of our risen Lord and savior!
This is a Holy Week like no other.
As United Methodists, we often talk about our Connection to the rest of the denomination. This year, our North Carolina Conference is helping us with Holy Week and Easter worship. You can save and pull up on your electronic device during these observances, or print out them out for your use at home.
Maundy Thursday we will observe a service in our own homes, a service that incorporates an actual meal that you have prepared, as a part of the service. If you are alone, you can celebrate the service remembering that God is with you and we are united in a communion of the saints. If you are living out your stay-at-home order with others, the meal and liturgy are shared together. You may also wish to connect with others via social media and participate together. Traditionally Maundy Thursday also remembers that Jesus washed the disciples' feet, and so a washing ritual is included in the service too.
Good Friday is a similar idea, but without the meal. This day commemorates Jesus death on the cross and the placing of his body in a tomb. The worship service is patterned around an evening Tenebrae service that involves a stripping of the place of worship of its decorations and a darkening through the extinguishing of candles. We usually do this in our sanctuary, but the resources we are sharing are modified to help us do this in our own homes.
Easter Vigil. I have heard many people share that the anxiety and stress of this pandemic are causing them to wake up in the middle of the night. Did you know that many churches throughout the world observe an Easter Vigil on Saturday Night/Sunday morning? In some places, this vigil is very long - it lasts from Midnight until sunrise. The conference has provided a resource for a Vigil - not long enough to last all through the night, but certainly filled with many scriptures and prayers for an extended service to be used sometime before the Easter celebration, perhaps on Saturday. Perhaps such an extended time of scripture and prayer would be a welcome oasis in this dark time.
Easter Celebration. On Easter morning, we invite you to tune in to a conference-wide live-streamed Easter service led by our Bishop Hope Morgan Ward. The conference is providing two live events - one at 9am and one at 11am. We believe that it will be a joyous occasion, to help us through this time when we cannot yet gather in our sanctuary together.
Finally, I want to plant in your imagination the seed of an idea - that when these quarantines and shelter-in-place orders are finally and eventually lifted, and when we can gather safely in our sanctuary again to worship God, Oh what an Easter Celebration we will have! We will praise God with a joy that perhaps we have never experienced together as we celebrate that our Savior has seen us through the storm, has delivered us from the disease, has filled our church family with good things!
I pray God's blessing upon you. As always, I invite you to contact me if you'd like to talk and pray about anything that is on your heart.
Again, here is the link to the Conference web page with the resources for this Holy Week, and with the link to the Easter morning services that you will be able to stream live. Before you click on this link, I invite you to read my introduction below. After you click on the link, you can scroll down to find the documents on the conference web page.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Ed
No comments:
Post a Comment