Holy Week 2024
Dear friends and members of St. Matt’s,
I was glad to see so many of you on Sunday as we began Holy Week together. I hope you’ll join us for as many of the services as you can this week. Tonight is the night that Jesus institutes the Eucharist, the night he kneels and washes the disciples feet. Tonight, Jesus tells us that he came not to be served – but to serve. Tonight and tomorrow night (Friday) you have an opportunity to participate in something that hasn’t happened here in quite a while. Both services are a little different than anything that’s been done in the last ten to fifteen years. It’s an opportunity to experience our faith in a new – or renewed way.
Tonight, we’ll participate in the ancient liturgy that commemorates Jesus as he washes the disciples’ feet. It’s a ritual that invites us to kneel down – like he did – and show love and kindness to our neighbors. Having said that, you can still come to church – and I hope you will – even if you don’t want to participate in that part of the liturgy. There will be an invitation to participate in that part of the service, it is not a requirement. And the rest of the liturgy will include the celebration of the Eucharist for the last time until Easter, the stripping of the altar, and the journey to the altar of repose. Please come and experience the seriousness and the somber notes of the night when Jesus is betrayed.
Then, on Friday night, you’ll have the chance to come and experience Taize worship. If you’ve not experienced this before, it will feel a little different to how we normally gather to worship and pray. It’s contemplative and the repetition of the music invites meditation and reflection. There will be a reading and some prayers. And there will be an extended period of silence. If you’ve not worshipped this way before, I invite you to come and try this on. It is a beautiful way to pray together, especially on a day like Good Friday.
However you plan to be present, please plan to be present over the course of these next three days. Journey with us and with Jesus to the cross. Bring you friends. Bring your family. Invite your neighbors to church on Easter. Come and be transformed by the love that lives and dies and lives again for you. Come and be changed – in body, mind, and spirit – because of this love and because of the wonders that God does. This is the key. It is the answer – to all the questions, all the doubts, all the pains, all the sadnesses of the world. These three days and the promise of Easter are the path to abundant life, to fulfillment, to joy.
I hope to see you very soon. And I wish you a blessed Holy Week.
Faithfully,
–Marissa +