I know it is not Easter yet, but meetings are underway to plan for Holy Week in many churches, and now is the time for you to plan to attend! There are churches who have a tradition of celebrating Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil during Holy Week. They may sound like three separate services, but in actuality they are one service that spans across three days. There are lots of parts to read and prayers to be prayed. Many in the congregation will have a part to play. You might look at the schedule for Holy Week and think, “Wow! Thursday, Friday, Saturday AND Sunday. That is a lot of church!” The reality of it is that it is time that we spend together retelling our story, the story of who we are and how we got here.
We begin in the upper room as Jesus shares a meal with the disciples and washes their feet. We journey through the chaos of Good Friday to the cross upon which Jesus dies. We join on Saturday to retell the salvation history of the people of God and to celebrate the Risen Christ.
This is about storytelling. And just as with good storytelling, you have to take your time and tell the stories with care. It is important for us to bring the past into our present memory, to continue to sit together and retell the story every year. These are the stories that we want to become a part of the very core of who we are. That is why we like to have lots of people involved in retelling these stories.
You may still think that it makes for a lot of church. I invite you to mark your calendars now, however, to be apart of this great story. Step out as you need to; there are others who will continue to tell the story, to keep the story flowing. But remember this is your story, it is our story, so plan to go and join in as much of the Great Three Days as is possible.
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Editor’s note: John Gibson is the pastor of Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church, Pea Ridge. He can be contacted through this newspaper at [email protected].