From Your Pastors
Senior Pastor Rich Neal and
Associate Pastor Nick Perry
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Holy Week and Easter
Pastor Rich Neal
There’s no way to Easter that does not pass through Holy Week. There’s no way to resurrection but through rejection, suffering, and the darkness of death. As we look toward Easter, we need to keep Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday in sight.
The Buddhists have a saying, “No Nirvana without Samsara”: there’s no eternal realm of transcendent bliss without the ordinary, everyday cycle of life and death; there’s no spiritual freedom without the constraints of the world. Isaiah expressed the same radically monotheistic truth. “I am the Lord,” he heard God say, “and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things” (Isa. 45:6-7). And Paul knew Christ as the image of the invisible God, in whom all things – light and dark, “good” and “evil” – were created and hold together (Col. 1:15-20).
The self-centered praises of the crowd on Palm Sunday; the oblivious table fellowship, betrayal, and abandonment by friends on Holy Thursday; the lonely, agonized death on Good Friday; the empty silence and stillness of Holy Saturday – these make Easter what it is, as much as the empty tomb does. So come, experience the whole mysterious pageant as darkness gives way to light, as death opens to new life, during our Holy Week and Easter observances.
Palm Sunday, March 28. During our contemporary worship service at 9:00 a.m. and traditional service at 11:00 a.m. we will remember Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the place of his greatest suffering and the threshold of his resurrection and exaltation. The youth of the congregation will offer a Pancake Breakfast beginning at 8:00 a.m. and continuing throughout the morning in Fillmore Hall. There will be no Sunday school on this day; classes will resume April 11.
Holy Thursday, April 1. In worship at 7:00 p.m. we will recall Jesus’ last meal with his disciples in a service that includes the Lord’s Supper and a Service of Tenebrae (darkness), in which the narrative of Jesus’ passion is read, candles extinguished, and the chancel stripped of adornment.
Good Friday, April 2. A simple Service of Prayer at noon will begin the long vigil that continues through Saturday and ends with the celebration of resurrection Sunday morning.
Holy Saturday, April 3. This will be a day of silence and stillness. No activities are scheduled, and individuals are encouraged to continue personal vigil.
Easter Sunday, April 4. At two identical worship services at 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. we will celebrate Christ’s resurrection, the triumph of life over death. There will be no Sunday school on this day; classes will resume April 11.