Holy Week has several unique and wonderful services. Keep scrolling, or click, to read about the background and distinctive elements of our Holy Week services:

  • Palm and Passion Sunday (March 29, 10am English, 11:30am Spanish)
  • Maundy Thursday (April 2, 7pm English)
  • Good Friday (April 3, 5:30pm Spanish; 7pm English)
  • Vigil of Easter (April 4, 7pm English)
 

This Sunday is Palm and Passion Sunday. Yes, it’s a two-for-one kind of thing. And if you’re a long-time Lutheran of a certain age, it’s probably different than what you grew up with. Allow me to explain.

Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday were once separate observances held during Lent.

  • Passion Sunday was once observed on the 5th Sunday in Lent. The old Common Service Book (the “black book,” published in 1918) and the Service Book and Hymnal (the “red book” published in 1958) reflect this practice.
  • Palm Sunday was the following Sunday, the 6th Sunday in Lent, and the start to Holy Week.
  • Passion Sunday thus kicked off a two-week microseason sometimes called Passiontide.

Passion and Palm Sundays were merged in the late 1960s (even if it took a bit longer for congregations to adapt their local traditions, and for denominations to publish new worship materials.). They were combined to avoid separating Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem from the reason for his entry - his passion on the cross. Thus, we added the Passion reading to Palm Sunday, allowing us to celebrate Jesus’ grand entry into Jerusalem and to dwell on what took place in Jerusalem as a result of his grand entrance. The combined celebration was reflected in the old Lutheran Book of Worship (the “green book,” published in 1978).

On Palm and Passion Sunday we read the Passion story from the Gospel of the year - which is Matthew this year.
 

Maundy Thursday (April 2, 7pm) is among my favorite liturgies of the year. It’s a dramatic service in which we recall that our Lord was betrayed by one of his disciples, yet shared with him a sacred meal and holy command to love. (The word Maundy comes from the Latin, mandatum, meaning command).

 

In addition to the “usual” order with Scripture, song, prayer, and Holy Communion, the Maundy Thursday service includes three dramatic and unique elements:

  • individual absolution of sins with the laying on of hands;
  • foot washing;
  • stripping of the altar.

INDIVIDUAL ABSOLUTION: The great sequence of our special Holy Week services - Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter - begins with the Confession of Sins and individual absolution on Maundy Thursday. Whereas we often confess our sins and hear a word of absolution, rarely do we allow for individual absolution. At this service you are welcome to come forward, or ask me to come to your seat, to lay hands on you and declare the entire forgiveness of your sins.

FOOTWASHING: Starting at least as early as the late 600s, Christians washed feet as part of their recollection of Jesus’ final supper. For Jesus this was an act of loving, and humbling, service. Peter at first refused Jesus’ gesture, but Jesus insisted. Lowering himself before his disciples was one of Jesus’ essential actions during Holy Week.

As with all aspects of worship, those who attend worship are welcome to participate in or refrain from any part of the service. I will be in the front, ready to wash the feet of any who come forward. Come forward, remove your shoe, and receive the gift of footwashing. You are welcome also to take my towel, and wash the feet of others. Household groups, spouses, friends - you’re all welcome to wash one another’s feet, and the feet of others.

STRIPPING OF THE ALTAR: The service concludes with removing everything possible from the altar and chancel area - altar book and candles, banners and paraments, my own vestments, and more. By the end of the service the space is bare, ready for the stark emptiness of Jesus’ death on Good Friday.
 

Good Friday (April 3, 5:30pm Español; 7pm English) is a meditation on the cross. The worship space has been made as plain as possible with the removal of banners and paraments and furnishings. We read from John’s Gospel, meditate on the sin of the world, and pray a deep and broad - and ancient - prayer for the church, the world, the whole human family, and all of God’s creation. The service concludes with the placing of a large cross in the front of our worship space.
 

Saturday’s Easter Vigil (April 4, 7pm) starts out with a great old chant that celebrates Christ the light who overcame the darkness of death and the tomb. This chant sets the stage for a time of storytelling, song, and prayer, as we read several great stories of God’s mighty saving works from the Old Testament. These readings invite us to be in awe of God’s deeds, to laugh at Jonah’s feeble attempts to run from God’s call, to rattle tambourines and blow on kazoos, and to hiss and boo those who would persecute God’s servants. These stories lead to the first announcement of Christ’s resurrection.

This is a service with lots of liturgical depth, but one which I conduct with an intentional informality. If you’ve never been, I encourage you to come and experience the Vigil for the first time. Yes, it’s another night out at church on a week of many nights out at church. Do your best. I promise you that the services will be planned and executed with care, faith, and a joyful expectation that the stories we tell, the unique actions we embody, and the prayers we lift up will bless you with the promise of God’s resurrection and life.