Good Saturday Morning, Whitesburg UMC!
Are y’all ready? We are putting on our shoes and getting prepared to walk into a week that is unlike any other week of the church year: Holy Week. This is the week we literally put all else aside and walk in gratitude and love with Jesus during the last week of his life on earth. It’s a week full of light and darkness. It’s a week full of unbelievable pain at how cruel the world can be as well as unbelievable joy at the depth of the love God has for the world. I want to encourage you to continue with your daily practice of devotional reading and prayer. But I also hope you will be a part of all the church is doing this week as well.
Every church lives out the week differently depending on their traditions and situations.
Here’s what the week looks like for us at Whitesburg:
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday. Like many churches, we are recognizing it as Palm/Passion Sunday. During the first part of the service we will wave the palm branches and remember Jesus’ entry in Jerusalem with the people shouting out a welcoming hosannah! Hosannah to King Jesus! Then, as the service progresses, we will notice a more somber, pensive mood. In lieu of a sermon, you will hear the Passion Story read from the gospel of Matthew. This is done in case there are those who will not be able to attend another service until the Easter celebration. It is a real imperative that each person hear the story of the Passion before they hear the story of Resurrection.
On Monday through Wednesday, we will keep our own vigil by reading scripture and prayer and keeping one another close.
On Maundy Thursday, we are delighted to be hosting a Last Supper Maundy Thursday meal, much like last year. But this time we have invited the community and will eat together at the Community Center at 6:00PM. With around 60 guests, we will enter a room similar to the “upper room” in the scriptures. We will become the disciples of Jesus sitting around the table with him that Passover night so soon before his arrest and death. The food will be similar to what they would have eaten. We will learn how they would have blessed the food. We will practice the ancient customs of hospitality. We will talk about the subtlety of the seating arrangement and some of the conversations that took place. It will be fun! But it will also be full of the realization of what Jesus did for us. At the end of the meal, we will share the bread and the cup then go out in silence into what will soon be Good Friday and the darkness of the grave.
Our Tenebrae Service will be at 6:30PM on Friday night. It’s a service of light and darkness, where the mood is somber, the altar is stripped of all the familiar symbols, and even the music and the light of the Sanctuary are eventually extinguished as the Passion story is read. We will leave feeling as if something has been taken from us, as if something is just not right………………
We will do all that. BUT…………………………….
We will get up early on Easter Sunday morning just like the women who came to the grave! The Community Sunrise service will be at 7:45AM at the Community Center Pavilion. Chef Jim will have breakfast waiting for us at the church at 8:45. There will be no Sunday School. But at worship at 11:00, the darkness of Friday and Saturday will be replaced with light – with lilies and embraces – with alleluia! He is risen! He is risen indeed!!
What a week! What a holy, holy week! I look so forward to sharing it with you!
Love you in the love of Christ!
Martha
P.S. It is still not to late to make your reservation for Thursday evening. Fill out a form on the table in the back of the Sanctuary or go to www.whitesburgumc.com.
If you are helping with food for the Thursday meal, feel free to bring with you tomorrow and leave in the kitchen. If you have questions, the team will be meeting for a few minutes after church.