Holy Week

April 14-20 is Holy Week for the Protestant/Roman Catholic Christian Churches. Orthodox Christians will honor this important time a week later. We call this week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday Holy because it is the time when we remember the most powerful action our God has done for us. We walk the entire week reflecting on who this Jesus is and what he did for our sin and our salvation. That is, Jesus conquered sin, death and the devil and made us whole again with God.

The season of Lent is a time when we reflect on how we have not lived into the love that God has shown us. We embrace practices of healing, spiritual cleansing (Fasting and other acts of giving up those things that poison our walk) and deepening of the devotional life (entering into prayer or the reading of scripture). This is all to prepare us for entering into Holy Week to bear witness to the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This is all to say that it really is a week where we should set aside all meetings, athletic practices, and anything else that would prohibit us to fully participate in this Holiest of Weeks.

I think it is hard for us in this modern era to be challenged this way. We are convinced, somehow, that our work or our athletic endeavors are more important than what God has done for us. As a people of faith, what does it say about our practices if they can be so easily subverted by something that cannot save us or give us the deep undying love that is already poured over us. It is hard to live a life of gratitude if we refrain from participation in the practices of gratitude.

I encourage you to get your calendars out and mark out the time of Holy Week and make a commitment to enter fully into our Saviour's journey from palms to the cross. We begin with Palm Sunday on April 14, worship at 8:30 and 11:00 am. On Holy Wednesday we will gather for a special healing service at 7pm. Maundy Thursday we will have the ritual washing and the sharing of Holy Communion at noon and 7pm. Good Friday your choir will be offering a special tenebrae service entitled "It Is Finished" at 7pm.

Martin Luther wrote: God placed the church in the midst of the world, among countless external activities and callings, not in order that Christians should become monks but so that they may live in fellowship and that our works and exercises of our faith may become known among the people. (Table Talk No. 3993)

You are invited, come and worship.

"So Joseph [of Arimathea] took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb." (Mat 27:59-61)