Holy Week: Get Ready!

At Glen Mar, we say every member is a minister and so I just wanted to write a note to all my brothers and sisters at Glen Mar about the upcoming Holy Week. I appreciate all the ways you help your brothers and sisters in Christ to praise God, week in and week out.

I especially wanted to thank you for all the ways we pull together on this holiest of weeks for the holiest of tasks. What do I mean “holy tasks”?

Dressing the altar, providing for the children, the powerful music, the sound and lights, the bread and juice, the hand of welcome, the hospitality, the loving guidance, the Christian care, the Word read and proclaimed, the preparation, all of it, they are holy tasks, set apart for God and our neighbors, whom we love, so that in that experience, even in that big ol’ room, people can experience the love of God and the freedom and power that comes from following a resurrected saviour. Even if you don’t have an “up front” job and even for folks who “only” are there to worship, your holy task is to be a little of Christ’s love for the person next to us: the person washing their hands at the restroom sink, the person we hold the door for….There is no more joyful task, there is no better news, there is nothing more exciting than that!

I was thinking about what I’d want to say to you and to all the folks at Glen Mar about Easter, and I thought about how it is every year, with the people streaming in, all the faces and hands stretched out for bulletins, all the chairs, all the ties and dresses, and how it’s either 90 degrees or 40 degrees outside. We studied the Feeding of the 5000 in my leadership class a couple weeks ago, and the metaphor we used was, that Jesus, “embraced the crowd.” He turned to them before he “knew” them, without regard for their “goodness” or anything about them, and offered them compassion and hospitality. We need to open our arms wide and “embrace the crowd” that comes on Easter, offer them hospitality, and share what we have with them in love. If there’s ever a Sunday to smile at someone, or to talk to the person next to you in the row, this is the one! Ask them what service they go to! We’re all in there together, so you won’t look funny! If they say this is my first time, invite them to worship next Sunday!

I know that your constituencies and you have many things to do on Easter, but I’m hoping that we can all let the joy in our hearts show on that Sunday, everybody in the congregation, from Bishop Schol to that set of grandparents in the last row by the door. We are one church, all the time. On Easter, we show on the outside, how God made us on the inside: one body in Christ, one family in God, beloved, redeemed, and free.

This week as we rehearse, unload equipment, hunt for missing napkins, figure out what’s causing that bizarre problem that we’ll only find out about on Sunday, as the kids enjoy spring break and as people commit their time and their gifts to this Holy Week, I hope we can remember that Jesus has already done the hardest part. When I get out of my car on Easter morning, I’m literally shaking with excitement. Because I know the tomb is empty, and because like Mary Magdalene “I have seen the Lord.” I have seen him at Glen Mar, in the cribbery and the Bible study, at the communion table and Celebrate recovery, at youth group, and in the fellowship hall, at the budget meeting, the staff meeting, and on the mission trip and at Carpenter’s Kitchen. I bet you have seen him too! Thank God and thank you for that gift we give each other, and praise God that God has brought us all together to proclaim, all together, with one voice and one heart, Christ is Risen!

This entry was posted on 16 March 2008 at 18:59 and is filed under Worship, General Nourishment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.