Good Friday – Zelophehad's Daughters

And It Was Night

Lynnette19 April 20195 Comments

“So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.” (John 13:30)

At the Maundy Thursday service last night at my parish, our visiting Quaker (because we have a visiting Quaker for Holy Week this year, which has been a fascinating experience in and of itself) gave the sermon, and talked about what the Last Supper, and indeed all of Holy Week, might have felt like for the disciples. Intense. Unsettling. Confusing.

I, of course, like all of you, know the end of the Easter story; I think I likely knew the end, the Resurrection, before I knew the beginning or the middle of the narrative. And that knowledge of what is to come inevitably shapes our perspective on the rest of the events. But the sermon called our attention to the fact that for those who were having these experiences, they didn’t know how it would turn out. The disciples at the Last Supper didn’t know it was the last. And they were likely rather confused as to why Jesus was adding an unfamiliar ritual to the meal, instructing them to eat bread and drink wine in remembrance of him. Read More

In Church Life, Easter, Good Friday, Liturgy

My Holy Week Experience

Lynnette19 April 201719 April 2017

Palm Sunday

Holy Week kicks off! I’ve been excited for this ever since I found myself not just doing drive-by visits to the Episcopal church, but attending regularly. I’ve dipped in and out of different Holy Week events in the past, but I’ve never gone to all of them. This is actually my first time attending a Palm Sunday service.

We meet in the courtyard outside the chapel, and they distribute palms as we enter. We hold them up as they read the opening liturgy outside. They have a choir with handbells, and the music is just gorgeous. We slowly process into the building. Most of the service is taken up with a reading of the Passion narrative. They’ve assigned different people in the congregation to voice the different characters, which really brings it to life. (I’m amused to note that one of the rectors is playing both Judas and Pilate.) Since that’s the focus, there isn’t a sermon, although they do have Communion. (I’m coming to realize that Episcopalians pretty much do the Eucharist whenever possible.) They don’t read the Resurrection part of the text, of course, since it’s not Easter yet, so the service ends on a rather serious note. The congregation leaves in silence; unlike regular Sundays, the rectors don’t stand near the doors afterward and shake hands with people. But I leave on a real high nonetheless, excited for the coming week. Read More

In Atonement, Christ, Good Friday, Sin, Theology

Death on a Friday Afternoon

Lynnette14 April 201714 April 20172 Comments

Selections from Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross (Basic Books, 2000).

“Christians call them the Triduum Sacrum, the three most sacred days of all time when time is truly told. The fist, Maundy Thursday, is so called because that night, the night before he was betrayed, Jesus gave the command, the mandatum, that we should love one another . . . The second day is the Friday we so oddly call ‘good.’ And the third day, the great Vigil of Resurrection Conquest. Do not rush to the conquest. Stay a while with this day. Let your heart be broken by the unspeakably bad of this Friday we call good . . . let your present moment stay with this day. Stay a while in the eclipse of the light, stay a while with the conquered One. There is time enough for Easter.” (1-2)

“Good Friday brings us to our senses. Our senses come to us as we sense that in this life and in this death is our life and our death. The truth about the crucified Lord is the truth about ourselves . . . The beginning of wisdom is to come to our senses and know that fearful truth about ourselves, that we have wandered and wasted our days in a distant country far from home.” (4) Read More