Over the past few years we noticed that our congregation and their families tend to show up in droves to Christmas, Palm Sunday and Easter. Don't get me wrong, we love to pack the place whenever we can, but we were noticing something wrong with this picture. The celebration of the birth, triumphal entry and resurrection of Jesus are all positive. What we saw were families missing the whole point of Jesus' resurrection. Why was Jesus born, why did he come into Jerusalem and why do we celebrate the resurrection? As Christians and Lutherans we believe that we are both sinner and saint, at the same time. This means that there are two sides to the story. Baby Jesus was born so that he may die. He entered Jerusalem as a beginning of a journey to the cross. And most importantly, you can't resurrect without first dying! As a church we had to ask the tough question of "how do offer opportunities for our community to experience holy week?"
In past years we have done more of a Passion Sunday rather than just Palm Sunday where we experience the entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper and a little of Good Friday all within the Palm Sunday worship service. It helped to educate people more about Holy Week, but it didn't help involve anyone outside of our Sunday or Monday services.
Our Education director Kristin Skare recently visited St. Andrew's Lutheran in Mahtomedi, MN and experienced their Holy Week "Walk with Jesus". She was impressed at the number of families involved and was moved by the "incompleteness" of the story and subsequent invitation to come back on Easter to see how the story ends.
Implementing something like this at Word of Peace would be no easy task, but we have never backed down from a good challenge. Could we pull it off? How many people would come? Was it worth it? We have always been blessed with amazing volunteers and when the idea was pitched the support from staff and congregation members alike made us very hopeful.
Over the course of 3 months we prepared for the Holy Week Walk. In the end we transformed our entire church into the major scenes of Holy Week inviting families to come and walk in the steps of Jesus and experience his final week before the cross. Below is a brief outline of the Holy Week Walk.
The Streets of Jerusalem
When people attending the Holy Week Walk arrive they are greeted by a gathering area that had been transformed into a Jerusalem street. Different vendors and actors roam the booths and invite people to take part. We had different booths for fish, pottery, bread, and spices. There was also a prayer wall where people could write down prayers and tie them to a wall.
The walk was lead by a Narrator and two witnesses. They helped people along and described the events that were taking place. There were also musicians with guitars that would lead a song or two in every scene. Jesus entered the street and was followed by a live colt. The kids loved that one! We then followed Jesus and his disciples to the Last Supper
The Last Supper
The crowd was welcomed into our sanctuary for the Seder Meal. Jesus and his followers sat up front and acted out the last supper. The narrator and witnesses then invited everyone to try some of the unleavened bread, bitter herbs and grape juice.
The Garden of Gethsemane
We then headed to the garden where Jesus prayed. We had originally planned to be outside, but 9 inches of snow changed our minds. We quickly created a garden scene on one corner of the sanctuary that was not being used.
Our next stop was the house of Pontius Pilate where Jesus was placed on trial.
One of the things we were concerned about was the crucifixion and how we wanted to treat the death of Jesus. We decided to not show any blood or Jesus hanging on the cross. We made sure people knew that Jesus died, but they only thing they saw was an empty cross.
Here we gathered everyone at the foot of the cross with Mary the mother of Jesus. The song Pie Jesu by Andrew Webber was sung as a duet and the crowd was invited back into the sanctuary to see the tomb.
In the end we planned for 125 people to come for 2 showings. We had over 220 people there each time! We were blown away by the response and couldn't believe how God was working through us. We were truly blessed this Holy Week and are so excited for next year.
We took a risk that involved a lot of work, changes in the Good Friday traditional worship service and involving tons of people on a weekday in the afternoon. but our prayers were answered and amazing things happened!
Next week I will focus a little more on the behind the scenes aspects of the Holy Week walk and what it took for us to accomplish it.
Till then, God bless.
Dain
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