Over the course of the church year, while the readings, hymns, prayers, and themes of our worship rotate to reflect the changing seasons of the Church year, the structure and the feel of the services remain the same. The hymns these past few weeks have been Lent hymns, the readings have been Lent readings, but we’ve stood and sat and sang in the same order as always.
During Holy Week—the days beginning on Palm Sunday and running through Easter—the nature of our worship changes.
One way to put it would be this: During the rest of the year, we worship mostly in our heads. During Holy Week, our worship becomes more embodied.
Every Sunday, we hear and think and sing and speak. We listen to sermons that reflect on and expand on the readings. Some of us kneel in prayer; most of us stand and sit, but mostly stay in place. We hold books and pieces of paper, we receive bread and wine, but the rest is all words.
But on Palm Sunday, we’ll all parade around the church, walking together, waves branches of palm. The Gospel will be proclaimed in a dramatic Passion play, not a reading by a single voice. On Maundy Thursday, we’ll eat together, and move throughout the church, and strip the altar of its decorations. Some of us will wash each other’s feet. On Good Friday, we see and touch a wooden cross. On Holy Saturday at noon, we hold a quiet burial service for Christ. At the Great Vigil of Easter, we play with fire, light candles in the darkness, spray water into the pews from evergreen branches and ring bells to say our Alle—ias.
Holy Week is a sensory experience, a new way of encountering the same Good News, not simply hearing it with our ears but feeling it in our whole bodies. It’s a time of ancient customs, experienced anew: whether it’s your first time or you look forward to it every year, I hope you can join us for one of these services or more, as you consider what the death and resurrection of Jesus mean for you this year.
Palm Sunday — March 24 — 10am
We celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with a parade of palms, and remember the crushing disappointment of his betrayal, arrest, and death with a reading of the Passion According to Mark.
Maundy Thursday — March 28 — 6pm
As Jesus gathered with his disciples for a Last Supper together, we share a simple meal. As he taught them his “new commandment” to love one another as he loved them, and then humbly knelt to wash the dirt from their feet, we wash one another’s feet. As darkness fell and he went out to the Garden to pray, we strip the decorations and ornaments from our sanctuary and bring the Blessed Sacrament to rest in a Garden of Repose.
Good Friday — March 29 — 7pm
We remember again the events of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, and death with a solemn service of readings and prayers, and venerate the cross on which he died and through which he destroyed the power of death.
Holy Saturday — March 30 — 12pm
One of the simplest, most austere, but most moving services of the year, the Liturgy of the Word for Holy Saturday reflects on the day in which Jesus rested in the tomb, and offers prayers drawn from our funeral services.
The Great Vigil of Easter — March 30 — 7pm
Our celebration of Easter begins with the kindling of a new fire and the retelling of the whole story of salvation, stretching from the moment of creation through Easter morning, followed by a festive celebration of the first Eucharist of Easter.
Easter Sunday — March 31 — 10am
We journey with the women who followed Jesus to the door of his empty tomb, and see their astonishment to find him risen, crying aloud our words of praise: “Alleluia! Christ is risen!”