We are quickly approaching Holy Week, my favorite time of the year. It is a week in which we are invited to follow the steps of Jesus from his triumphant entry into Jerusalem that eventually leads to the ignominious death on a cross, being handed over as a heretic by religious authorities and executed as a subversive by the government. Not exactly a narrative from the superheroes’ anthology.
When I became an Episcopalian, I fell in love with this week because it was participatory. Rather than just learning the facts of the Bible or having the orthodoxy of one’s belief checked for heretical ticks, one is invited to participate in the Divine Drama as it occurred in the past, but it is re-presented in these liturgical actions in the “now moment”. One can become a part of the drama, not just with your head and cognitive processing, but can bring your heart along for the ride, to feel and sense the deep fluctuations of emotions in the joyful hope of restoration, the warmth of community, the bitterness of betrayal, the struggle of doubt, the sting of death, and the pain of abandonment. Holy Week has it all, even before IMAX was invented.
Before I rehearse the events of Holy Week, a tip of the beretta must go to one Spanish nun, Egeria. I discovered Egeria while I was doing research with Marion Hatchett one summer on the Holy Mountain of Sewanee. Egeria’s Travels is the record of her travels in the late 4th century, notably her description of the week of liturgical rites in Jerusalem on the week prior to Easter, as pilgrims made their way to that city to “walk where Jesus walked”, to recount the events leading up to the great feast of Easter. Thanks to the recovery of her journal, we have a description of what it was like to participate in the community of the faithful who gathered in Jerusalem to retrace the journey of Jesus. Egeria’s description is full of details that warm the hearts of liturgical beasts like me. I hear from one of my coachees that the volume costs $50.00 these days, which may seem high to beach fiction readers, but it’s a bargain to enter into that rare world of antiquity. As my pastor, Estill “Pistol Pete” Jones used to say, “If you have your shirt, yet don’t have this book….sell your shirt!”.
Liturgical scholars used Egeria’s accounts and other documents to recover the richness and vibrancy of the early church in recapturing the dynamism of the Holy Week liturgy. It begins with Palm Sunday, also called Passion Sunday. Palm Sunday is coming up this Sunday, so find yourself a place that celebrates it in style. It marks the triumphant entry of Jesus and his followers into the holy city of Jerusalem. It is marked by hope, that this may be the Messiah, long-awaited, prophetically pointed to, who would deliver the Hebrew people from the Roman occupation. If you have difficulty imagining the underlying energy, think back a few years ago following the George Floyd killing and Ahmaud Arbery’s murder, with communities erupting with Black Lives Matter demonstrations. It was similar back in Jesus’ holy week, except you would have to amp it up a few levels. Hebrew Lives Matter! could have been the chant. It was empowering to the participants, fueled by both hope and anger; scary as hell to the Romans.
And so the Church recounts this triumphant entry by lining up the local worshippers, generally outside of the worship space, walking in procession, singing a familiar hymn, All Glory, Laud, and Honor, as they process, waving palm branches, into the church building to begin this Holy Week. It is still one of my central memories of entering the Episcopal Church, holding my palm branch, walking onto Peachtree Street, in front of St. Luke’s in downtown Atlanta on an early Spring morning. I was hooked.
So, it’s an upbeat beginning but it takes a sharp left turn. The joy of hope in the entrance turns quickly to the pathos of what Jesus was facing. At the reading of scripture, jarringly the Passion Narrative is read, with Jesus’ trial, condemnation, and execution read from the Gospel text. It has always seemed abrupt, badly timed to me, until I realized the intent, the purpose of injecting the Passion into this moment of revelry. And the reason is simple: you must go through the Cross in order to get to Easter. The liturgical architects knew that many of the faithful would not make it through the rigors of Holy Week, not attend Good Friday where the Cross and Jesus’ death are rubbed in one’s face, so the failsafe position was to tack on the Passion at the end of Palm Sunday’s liturgy. It’s a practical solution, with good intention, but not ideal in my liturgical heart.., the cart before the horse if you will.
It is effective, nonetheless. I encourage you to find a parish with a Palm Sunday liturgy. The mood swing will be palpable. I have produced them in gorgeous Spring mornings, glorious and resplendent in dogwood blossoms, and I have led the liturgy in howling wind, snow and ice. It’s a crap shoot if you are doing it outside, but it’s worth the gamble.
With Palm Sunday. Holy Week is off and running. Clergy are engulfed in planning, writing sermons, rechecking who is doing what. My strategy was to have my planning and writing done the week before, but we all know the fate of well-laid plans.
In Holy Week, many parishes will offer daily prayers in the morning or evening, to provide a space and time for their members to gather intentionally. In the Episcopal Church, the lessons read and prayers offered are appropriate to the day of the week in Holy Week, following Jesus’ actions in his final week. Since Covid, many parishes have gone online with these daily prayer services. Namely, Canterbury has done so in England, as does Christ Church, Frederica on St. Simons Island here in coastal Georgia. I take advantage of both those connections often, and am grateful for the convenience and thoughtfulness.
The next major liturgy is on Thursday, known as Maundy Thursday. “Maundy” refers to the Greek word, “mandare”, to command. It marks Jesus’ last gathering with his disciples. His commandment is to love. Love is such a wistful thing, tending toward romantic ideations of literally “falling into it”. On this day, the deeper meaning is honored as it is COMMANDED by Jesus of those who would follow his Way of being in the world, ordered if you will, for it is an action that sometimes goes against our apparent, felt self-interest. Jesus insists that we must love even our enemies. I haven’t seen a Valentine’s card with that sentiment expressed. Jesus is talking about serious business, this love thing, and it could cost you your life.
Maundy Thursday is a powerful liturgy/experience as one listens in on the intimate exchange of Jesus with his closest circle, his students, his disciples. Imagine for sixty seconds: just what was Jesus thinking? He had intentionally decided to go to Jerusalem at the high feast time of the Passover. He intuited, saw, realized that this might not turn out well as he confronted both the religious and governing authorities. If you think Jesus had a “playbook” or a plot synopsis in his back pocket, you are doing violence to Jesus’ humanity as coming to Jerusalem was a risk, fraught with danger.
So here he is, planning his last night, his last class, his final encounter with the persons he has been training, teaching. A disciples’ wrap party, if you will. So Jesus offers two actions to align his team: foot washing and a common meal.
Washing feet was an everyday thing in this dusty environment, but the trick was to show how the true disciple of Jesus must be the servant who washes, not the one served. So Jesus kneels humbly to wash the feet of his disciples, taking on the role of the servant. What an intimate moment of teaching/training as he embodies the posture of those who wish to follow him. How odd that the Church has relegated this act to the back of the storehouse of ritual, pulling it out of the closet once a year… maybe. How different our history might have been if we had done this weekly as well as communion, a proper balance of community and service. Wishful thinking on my part.
Gathering at table with bread and wine, with a blessing acknowledging our reliance on God’s presence was an everyday thing as well. But this time, Jesus transforms the ordinary into a promise of presence whenever the faithful gather, that he will be there among them. That is soon to be experienced after his death as the disciples are on the road to Emmaus. “Surely we knew him in the breaking of the bread” is recorded. And it still happens today when the faithful gather with intent. Keep in mind that on this night, Jesus knew what he was doing, gifting his followers with a way forward, even when he was no longer physically present. It’s a powerful liturgy and not to be missed, usually occurring on Thursday evening.
Good Friday is a somber day with the focus on Jesus’ death. Scripture is read, rehearsing the events of those hours of Jesus on the Cross. Some churches will do meditations on the last words of Jesus from the Cross. My preaching professor, who introduced me to Howard Thurman, Dr. Joe Roberts of Ebenezer Baptist Church, was imported annually to my home Episcopal parish to do the honors of reflecting on these words. It became legendary, and the church house was packed. Some churches, especially Roman Catholic parishes, will bring out a corpus cross (a cross with the body of Christ on it), allowing the faithful to reverently approach and kiss the feet of Jesus, a practice that was witnessed by Egeria. Still, others keep it simple, quiet, reflective, allowing the event to speak for itself. Communion is offered from the reserve sacrament, having been consecrated the night before. This service is normally held at noon, though many parishes offer an evening liturgy for those who must work.
This all leads to the Easter Vigil. Some parishes offer it after sundown on Saturday. That is the way I first experienced its mystical power of light overcoming darkness. Others offer it at sunrise, capturing the cosmic presence of the fresh dawn light. And some sleep in.
Wherever I have served as priest, I urged people to come on Saturday evening to experience the best of what liturgy offers the faithful, a way to participate in this holy hope of life’s victory over death. It is the real Easter experience. People who make the effort to show up for the Easter Vigil generally make it their preferred way of celebrating this central mystery of faith for the rest of their lives.
You will have to check schedules to see when this is available in your area, and at what church. Last year, I was at the Trappist Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia, the place where I first participated in the Vigil. This past year, Easter Vigil was at 4:30 AM Sunday morning which made for an interesting liturgy as we literally began in darkness, and slowly watched the sun awaken. However you are able to get to a Vigil, wherever, whenever…I commend it highly. You will thank me.
So that’s Holy Week, a designed experience to lead you into an awareness of this Christ moment and offer you an opportunity to participate in the deepest meaning of this Mystery of faith. My sense is that people are hungry for an experience of the presence of the Holy, longing to find hope in a time of despair. The Church has a unique platform to address this spiritual need, rather than pouring facts and ideas into people’s heads. They look for an experience that will help them in their suffering. They want to touch, feel, and taste this hope that is offered in these liturgies.
I pray that you find your own way to make this real for yourself rather than being a passive observer. Like Egeria, make your pilgrimage to this holy space and time, and get ready to be moved, touched, even transformed. Blessings.
South of God 