April 6, 2009 — 9:19 PM
Crunch time
It's Holy Week. And for Christian religious professionals that means that it's crunch time. This, more than Christmas, is the big show. The time to pull out all the stops.
It all starts with Palm Sunday services, which can include as much or as little of the Passion story as leaders choose. Some purist like to keep it all about Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Others acknowledge that people in the church probably won't make it to any of the services during the week and so they include parts of the Passion story so that worshippers don't just go from triumphal entry to triumph over the grave on Easter.
At mbcc, Pastor Bruce decided to go the more purist root yesterday. He made mention of the practice of also including parts of the Passion story but chose not to do so. Instead he encouraged everyone to come out to services at the end of the week to experience the story as it unfolds. Those services include a Maundy Thursday service commemorating Christ's Last Supper with his disciples (complete with a foot washing for those who are willing to go there) and a Good Friday evening Taize service.
In addition to participating in these services, I will also be one of the preachers for the service of the Seven Last Words of Christ at First Presbyterian Church, San Anselmo. This service will be held on Good Friday from noon - 3 pm. These are the hours that Christians believe that Jesus hung on the cross and died. It is a service that looks at phrases that Jesus is reported to have said while hanging on the cross. It draws from the accounts from all of the Gospel stories.
This will be my seventh year participating in such a service - I was invited to preach during my third and fourth years in seminary. And after I preach this Friday I will have preached a sermon on all seven of the last words. I'm excited by this. Yes, my church nerd is shining through loud and clear!
This is an important week and I intend to not let it pass by quickly in the rush of details and deadlines. I just can't experience the profound meaning of Easter unless I observe all that leads up to it throughout the week. So excuse me if I seem a bit distracted this week, my mind is focused on Holy Week.
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At 8:44 AM on April 7, 2009, Leslie Veen wrote:
The Revised Common Lectionary also lists a ton of passages for this day to cover both the triumphal entry as well as pieces of the Passion story. I, myself, did a sort of combination of both when I preached Palm Sunday in 2004 (See: "Will the Real Messiah Please Stand Up?" in my sermon archive). I did it to foreshadow what would be coming during Holy Week and to help people understand that a lot happens between Palm Sunday and Easter.
At 11:30 PM on April 6, 2009, Luke wrote:
So I just checked with my Tridentine Missal (yes, I have a Latin Missal from before the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council...) and the Palm Sunday liturgy includes both the liturgy of the palms and the passion. I think you have the purist and non-purist practices backwards. The purist (and ecumenical) practice would be to include both the triumphal entry and then move to the passion. It's a helpful reminder to see a sudden shift from triumph to death, and I personally like the way they are juxtaposed in one service––the rapid transition is what I like most about Palm Sunday...and it never keeps me away from church every day of holy week. But then again...I'm a seminarian ;-)