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Dear St. Christopher's Family,
We’re entering this evening the holiest time of our year. It’s a three-day observance of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and, of course, the Sunday of the Resurrection, Easter. The puffed-up theological name for this time is the Easter Triduum, which quite simply translates as “Three Days.” But they are packed with meaning for us.
Maundy Thursday, has the oddest name. It’s a Middle English corruption of the Latin Mandatum, or commandment. In the Gospel we hear tonight as we remember the Last Supper, the Church reminds us that the essence of our life together, as Jesus intended it, is found in a New Commandment:
Mandatum novum do vobis hodie: ut diligatis ad invicem sicut dilexi vos
I give to you today a New Commandment: that you should love one another as I have loved you.
-John 13:34
Good Friday is the most solemn and, frankly, eeriest of these observances. As we remember Jesus’ passion and death, this is the only service of the year that does not end with the comfort of Jesus being with us even though he’s not seen. The church has been stripped bare from the night before, and not even the flickering light of the vigil lamp above the aumbry is there to assure us.
17 Your blazing anger has swept over me; *
your terrors have destroyed me;
18 They surround me all day long like a flood; *
they encompass me on every side.
19 My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me, *
and darkness is my only companion.
-Psalm 88:17-19
But on Sunday, Death, the last enemy, is conquered. We come as we do each Sunday, to remember his death, proclaim his resurrection, and await his coming in glory (BCP 368). It is a long three days. A lot of people have done a lot of work to get ready for this: our choir, and especially Becky; our Altar Guild, especially Nancy; our office assistant Keeley, who has run so many bulletins for us; and Holly, Julie, and the rest of our Children’s Ministry volunteers who are planning such a celebration for us.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25-26
A Happy Easter to you all. Alleluia!
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