April 21, 22 & 23, 2011
Christians do many amazing things this week. I know people that go to church every day of Holy Week. Some go to worship and pray. Some go to decorate or take care of altar guild duties. Some are involved in preparing the worship folders – the printed ones, the announcements and the artwork. Others are busy rehearsing for all the services – the flutist, the organist, the adult singers and cantors and children – a very busy time indeed. We all have various daily routines of families, work and school which all continue as usual, but we add additional tasks. Many of us anticipate family gatherings for Easter week/Sunday and are busy preparing menus and thinking about decorating eggs and Easter baskets. But, Holy Week comes before the glorious celebration on Sunday and we cannot ignore what happened 2000 years ago that brought on the day we now know as Easter Sunday.
Thousands of words will be spoken and heard in the course of these days. There is much to tell and such wondrous things are encapsulated so well in poetry from the church’s hymnwriters. The gospel readings in Holy Week bring Jesus and us ever closer to the time and place of sacrifice.
On Maundy Thursday our service opens with flute and organ in a solemn rendition of “O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded”. If you come early you can turn in your hymnal to Hymn #169 and read the words as you hear the music from the loft and observe the procession to the altar. Bernard of Clairvoux, along with Paul Gerhardt asks with us:
What Language shall I borrow
To thank thee, dearest friend,
For this thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
“O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded”
We hear Jesus’ command to love one another and He seals that command with his own gifts of bread and wine, water and towel.
God is love, and where true love is
God himself is there.
“Ubi Caritas”
On a Friday that Christians dare call “good,”* we think about the ultimate sacrifice, pray for ourselves and each other in the shadow of the cross, and adore the one crucified for the salvation of the world. After communion and the emotional scene of the Veneration of the Cross, we will sing the hymn, “Go To Dark Gethsemane” as James Montgomery bids us:
Go to dark Gethsemane,
All who feel the tempter’s power;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see.
Watch with him one bitter hour;
Turn not from his griefs away;
Learn from Jesus Christ to pray.
“Go to Dark Gethsemane”
*The origin of the term Good is not clear. Some say it is from "God's Friday" (Gottes Freitag); others maintain that it is from the German Gute Freitag, and not specially English. Sometimes, too, the day was called Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons; so today in Denmark.
Finally, at the Saturday Vigil, the climax is reached. Christ is risen and a new light in the darkness is proclaimed as the Light of Christ is brought into the darkened sanctuary by a deacon. The history of God’s salvation is recounted in the Exultet chanted by a cantor. We renew our baptismal vows and eat and drink in the presence of our risen Lord. Surrounded by such richness, we can only rise up and sing the splendid poetry of John Geyer:
We know that is raised and dies no more.
Embraced by death, he broke its fearful hold,
And our despair he turned to blazing joy. Hallelujah!
“We Know that Christ is Raised”
Sources:
Tune My Heart to Sing, Wold
The Hymnal 1982 Companion,Glover
A Priest’s Handbook, Michno
New Advent, Catholic Encyclopedia
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