Holy Week Complete- Easter!!

He is risen!  He lives and because he lives I can face tomorrow's tomorrow

Death has lost it's sting!  God is greater than all our fear!  Perfect love has cast out fear!

To God be the Glory!  GREAT things God has done!

Music was amazing!  Joy of my kidlet following her treasure hunt to find her Easter basket and eggs was delightful!  Worship was wonderful!  Seeing folks joyful and exhuberant was a gift! 

For those of you interested in the number of folks we shared Holy Week with...
                
Maundy Thursday -- 71                  
Good Friday -- 95

Easter Weekend
5 p.m. -- 234
9 a.m. -- 366                          
11:11 a.m. -- 181                        
Total = 781                          

Holy Week- Holy Saturday

I think on Holy Saturday the hardest working servants in the church are 1) the ladies and sometimes the men preparing the Sunday brunch; 2) our altar guild ladies who transform the sanctuary into Easter beauty; and musicians!  Preachers have it light on this day (hopefully because our sermons and prayers are already completed.

So, I did all the normal home things on Holy Saturday.  Until, I arrived at worship for our 5pm Easter servive - wow!  The music and setting were glorious! 

He is risen, indeed!

Holy Week- Good Friday

What wonderful weather and sunshine on Friday!  It was glorious!  I felt as if the oppressive winter may actually, finally, be over. 

My two best Good Friday moments were these (besides a wonderful worship service in the evening)...

1. I had the privilege to share Holy Communion at a facility with a couple.  The husband is currently doing rehab for his leg.  As we laughed and shared and joked.... I prepared to serve us Holy Communion from my little traveling set... balancing the Body and Bread of the Lord on my knees... I asked the gentleman for his prayer requests.  He took a long pause.  Before I tried to re-iterate my question, he quietly replied, "Well, let us pray for parents so that they would make disciples out of their children."  You could have knocked me over with a feather!  I was humbled all over by this quiet man's insightful, other-oriented request.  And so, by golly, we did pray for parents and grand-parents alike in their raising of their children to make them disciples of Jesus Christ!  WOW!
2. After our marvelous Good Friday dinner (we tried a new recipe with delicious salmon)... I asked my daughter to read from her rhyming story book about "Why there is a Cross?"  There in between colorful pictures and rhymes is the gospel story.  Listening to my daughter tell it... and in thier format ... I heard afresh why Jesus died, what it means, and how amazing the Love of God is.

It was a Good Friday.... and even better to know Sunday was a'comin'!

Holy Week- Thursday's Theme

Thursday's theme was servanthood.  Servanthood or service followed me to a hospital, a home, an assisted living community, back to my home, into a phone conversation, throughout my correspondence, and then eventually back into our evening worship again...  I could not shake it. 

Fascinating how this thread wove it's way into and through my day... it could have had something to do with the fact that I heard and read John 13:1-17 about four times throughout my day.  Sort of a "lectio divinia while on the go" spiritual discipline.  I never planned it that way, but gosh it was so fascianting and wonderful, I may purposefully do this again!

• At the hospital I read to a dying woman Jesus' washing of feet.  We marveled together over her new life to come...and how both she and Jesus 'know' what is coming next.
• At a home I dropped off an Easter basket for my goddaughter who lives with an inoperable brain tumor.  I marvel at her abundant life which embraces every moment.
• At the assisted living community I read to a woman who is slowly and painfully loosing her memory the story of Jesus' washing of feet.  And we marveled at the tenderness of the story and how she relies on the servanthood of others... now and into her future.
• Back in my home the secret duties of the "Easter Bunny" were finished and hidden from view of my kidlet, house was picked up, and four errands for my family were completed inbetween multiple phone calls with church staff and lay leadership.
• Again, I re-read my sermon and John 13:1-17 (Footwashing) while reading more about Pope Francis' washing of 12 teen prisoner's feet (including two young women!).  And I prayed for those twelve young people that they would be open to the Holy Spirit's movement in their lives.
• Then, it was time to arrive for worship with a very tired girl (who is very frustrated with her broken ankle/boot etc.) and a husband who is tired too...  and there in worship I heard for the fourth time in my day the story of Jesus caring for the disciples and challenging them to love one another... and my heart was gladdened yet again. 

But the best God moment of this Holy Thursday for me was- to sit at table with Calvary's disciples (of all ages and stages of life).. and to break bread & share the cup!  What a moving moment to be eye to eye around the table as the twelve!!!  Glory bumps were all over me...as I could witness how the Spirit's presence moved among the disciples gathered at the table!  HOLY WOW! 

To serve and be served by God's servants... what a blessing!

Yesterday, indeed is one of the Maundy Thursday's that I shall not forget! 

Holy Week- What in the World?! Wednesday

Wednesday... was well, wacky!

Our Wednesday staff meeting consisted of more conversation and reflection upon our brackets in the NCAA men's basketball tournament than anything profound, lofty or holy.  We did finally, pray together.  Not sure if that counts for something...

Yet, inspite of the worldiness of the staff our church was full of life abundant!  A full gaggle of awesome volunteers descended upon the church on Wednesday to put together our monthly newsletter.  They along with our amazing prayer warrior's and our previous office manager (Fay) filled the office suite with life and vibrancy.  In the midst of all that my husband camped out on the workroom floor to tinker, yet again, our the church's internet system. 

Wednesday was a...

• wacky-take your husband to work day because he gives his time towards the church computer system as his gift to Christ's church- kind of day. 
• weird- prepare the table for Maundy Thursday communion while listening to an awesome Easter (triumphant!) organ-piano duet,  total a clash of music and theology, kind of day. 

And I would not have traded it for the world...

Holy Week- Talkative Tuesday

My Holy Week Tuesday was full of worship planning meetings, bulletin editing, luncheons, and hospital visits.  I am not sure Jesus did luncheons and hospital visits during his final days in Jerusalem the same way I do... but, then he often healed the sick on the way to some other lecture or gathering. 

Why not do visitation ministry on his way to his betrayal, arrest, beatings and death?

Why not, indeed!

Tuesday was my day of conversations...we sat at table in the church office poured over bulletins and the thousands of details involved in 4 different worship services in 4 days!  Whew!

I listented to three lovely ladies share their ministry stories over salads filled my ears at lunch!  These ladies and I all did our spiritual direction training with the Benedictines back on 2000-2001 in Beech Grove, Indiana.  I marvel at their faithfulness and their keen gifts of deep listening!

And then I listened to the suffering and pain as folks share their health concerns was my afternoon.

I have no doubt that Our Lord did a lot of talking and listening his last week too...

Holy Week- Unsacred Monday

What makes the Monday of Holy Week holy or sacred?  Or is it just another day on planet Earth?

Was it the...

• foul weather requiring the snow blower
• science camp for my kiddo 
• my long list of busyness/errands
• piles of sorted out-grown clothes from my kiddo
• laundry duty
• mailing our Easter cards to friends and family
• cleaning the house
• mopping floors from soggy puppy paws 
• Easter egg decorating

I am acutely aware that my Holy Week rhythm has been thrown off by the mundane, yet again.  As you can see by my long list of busyness and worldliness, there is not a moment of silence, time of reflection, reading of scripture or even a mediation listed above.  I long ago read through my Lent Devotional (multiple times).

I have been thrown off course this Holy Week and it is only Monday.

And maybe that is the lesson... how easily we stray from our focus of faith, our relationship with our Savior, that we wander off into the mopping, dusting, and snow removal.

Sigh.  My holy week bracket is broken.