Holy Weekend, Batman!

Easter weekend was incredible. I'm still reeling at the richness of the services I attended. I'm going to try and blog about it but it feels massive.   


One of the things I can't get over is HOW MUCH scripture is read in the services. From Palm Sunday to Easter, chapters and chapters of stories and Psalms and verses. And the services:

Palm Sunday
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday
Easter Vigil (Saturday)
Easter Sunday

I loved being able to move from the triumphal entry to intimacy of the Upper Room, the institution of the Lord's Table, to the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus, then to gather with believers and wait for the Resurrection and then to rejoice at the Resurrection itself. I always felt emotionally confused growing up around Easter Weekend because it seemed like it was all very dramatic but I never had space and time to move through it all, like a religious traffic jam.   This year I did. 

And the symbolism:
To symbolize the entry into Jerusalem, we marched around the block of our church, waving Palm Branches and singing hymns. Imagine a bunch of rag-tag New Yorkers each waving a sliver of a Palm branch as they marched singing around the Upper West Side, through the noise and commerce of a Sunday morning.

We did foot washing on Maundy Thursday, which was warm and intimate.  How shocking to go from all that bare-footed, vulnerable warmth to the betrayal of Jesus, symbolized through the stripping of the altar-- have you seen it done? Incredibly moving to watch, in silence, as all of the elements that make up the Lord's Table are taken away one by one, so all that is left is a table and a cross, shrouded in a black cloth. The last act they do in the service is to turn the table sideways so that it resembles a coffin. And then we all leave in silence.

Good Friday-- no Lord's Table. We said long prayers of grieving. We reflected on sin and evil in the world. And at the end we venerated the cross-- one by one we were invited to go up, kneel before the cross, and say a pray, or kiss it, or hold on with both hands, or rest our heads against it. The entire service was done in near darkness, and we left in darkness. 

Easter Vigil-- began in darkness, but we were each given a candle. The service starts with the Paschal candle coming in and then we lit our candles from it.  (Funniest moment of the weekend at church-- the candle took an unceremonious dive off it's stand at the beginning of the service-- whoops!) We waited together, telling the stories of our faith-- of the Creation, of the sacrifice of Issac, of the parting of the Red Sea, of Ezekiel and the Valley of Dry Bones. We renewed our baptism vows and at the end of that the Priest announced that Christ is Risen, the lights came on and people rang bells and we got to sing Jesus Christ is Risen today, and start Easter early.  I loved this service-- it felt beautiful and moving and intimate and joyful.  

And Easter was great. I did the singing gig at Redeemer (30 piece orchestra and 30 piece choir, selections from Handel's Messiah) which meant sitting through the service twice, but I was enjoying the people and experience so much that I didn't mind. Went to some friends for lunch and then off to All Angel's for their 5 o'clock, then to another friends for another feast. Threw myself into bed after midnight, exhausted but happy.  The Lord is Risen Indeed!  Alleluia!