Before driving to my church this morning I'll cut palm fronds to take. I'm not sure the big plant is actually a palm but it's probably in the palm family and will have to do.
The church doesn't have a Maundy Thursday service, nor does it have Holy Week services. How strange to go from Palm Sunday and the triumphant entry of Jesus on a donkey to the resurrection. I've not been there long enough to make the parishoners long for Holy Week.
I've placed the solemn reproaches of the Cross to the service but unless I do a good job explaining the presence of these prayers, I'll be the only one who gets the move from happy donkey riding to the murder. And, how happy was that donkey ride for the One who knew what was coming?
Blessings to each of you who read this. The computer guy hasn't shown up but returned one phone call which resulted in instructions that didn't work. Sorry that my postings have been slow. I miss seeing your blogs and leaving comments for you, too.
3 comments:
The church I serve makes the move from Palm to Passion pretty well on this day... but we *also* have Maundy, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil. So I sort of wish we would dwell with the Hosannas a little longer, since we hit the rest quite fully during the rest of the week. Sort of a Christ the King idea.
But I'm a little envious of the simplicity of your Holy Week.
It's funny, I don't remember doing anything but Yahoo and Hosanna while growing up. At the church where I did Field Ed, they always read the Passiontide Liturgy from these little booklets (different for years A,B and C), with certain people taking particular parts and everyone being the crowd. I found it very dramatic and enthralling.
In my current church, perhaps a third of the congregation comes on Maundy Thursday, and a tiny fraction on Good Friday. That compels me to bring the Passion to Palm/Passion Sunday. Each of these three years we have done something dramatic in place of a sermon (I may never preach on Palm Sunday!). In Year C I wrote four monologues based on Mark's gospel (Peter, Pilate, the woman who anoints Jesus, and one of the women at the cross). Last year we used some materials from the Seasons of the Spirit curriculum--the readings were just from Luke, what made it special was the use of props laid on the communion table, from a flowering branch to a crown of thorns. This year we had six readers do Matthew, interspersed with very simple, evocative music from the choir. It really worked, I think.
Well, I hope that the computer guy will help you soon. We miss hearing from you, as well.
Our attendance during Holy Week, during the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services is only 10 percent (the really faithful). Our Lenten Lunch series is at 3 percent of the total congregation (the extremely faithful). We will have 125 percent of the ususal attendance on Easter. So, we also stress the Passion on Palm Sunday.
On another note, our local Baptist minister, when asked what he was doing last Sunday said "Yes, it will be a big celebration! You see Basketball Recognition Sunday comes only once a year!" -- He didn't have a clue it was Palm Sunday. Wow.
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