The Power and the Joy

What a wonderful Holy Week it has been for me. The Maundy Thursday
service at the Lutheran Church was different than any I have
experienced before. In Church of God it was different in that we did
the foot-washing ceremony which I found touching except it would have
been nice had we kept it a bit more solemn. I do miss that and wish we
did the foot washing remembrance here, but it didn’t feel like a
service really. It’s sort of hard to explain. I like the idea of having
a foot-washing service, but the foot-washing service was not quite as
powerful as I would have liked, if that makes any sense.

Here,
in the Lutheran Church, our Maundy Thursday service focused more on the
Last Supper and the Passover. We took communion and had a very solemn
service. It was reverent. One thing about the Lutheran Church is that
it is a very reverent type of church. I loved the buoyant emotions of
the Gospel Church and sometimes miss that, but I also love the solemn
reverence of the Lutheran Church. I don’t think either is necessarily
“better” than the other. I think both are wonderful, but this year I’m
enjoying the solemn reverence of this particular church.

Anyway,
at their Maundy Thursday service, they did something I’d never seen
before. It was called “stripping the alter.” At the end of the service,
when all the singing, praying and preaching was over, some of the women
(the alter guild, I presume) went to the front and, while the Pastor
read the 22 Psalm, they stripped everything from the alter and the
surrounding area. They extinguished and took away all the candles, all
the satin and linen decorative cloths, all the flowers, everything, the
communion platters. It was laid bare. I didn’t expect this and I’d
never seen it before and somehow this ritual had such a profound effect
on me that I found tears coming to my eyes. (Keep in mind that the
Lutheran church is not an emotional church like Church of God was…
people are not prone to crying – or making any kind of emotional
outburst as they do in the gospel churches. The Pastor told me that
Billy Graham once labeled the Lutherans, the “frozen chosen.”). This
stripping of the alter helped me to ponder how lonely this whole
journey must have been for Christ. None of us could ever understand
what His walk must have been. We can only grasp small parts of what He
had to face and, certainly, the disciples could grasp even less since
the Last Supper happened before the crucifixion and resurrection.

There
is an actual physical condition of stress that can cause a person to
sweat blood. And that’s what Jesus did only to come back and find us
sleeping. Not really us, but if I were there, I know I would have been
(at best…at worst I would have been one of the ones shouting, “Crucify
Him!”) I appreciate the services of the Lutheran Church because they’re
really helping me to have a new mindset, more Christ-centered, than I
had before. This is not to say that Church of God wasn’t a wonderful
place for me to be in the years previous to my Pastor’s indiscretion. I
am just saying that I am absolutely where I should be right now.

Then
last night, the Good Friday service was also powerful, but this time
for the sermon he preached. It was about Christ crucified. As
Christians, I know we’ve all heard it before, He died and in so doing
He saved us from the punishment that was ahead of us. But, somehow, it
took an even deeper root in me last night during the sermon. How could
it have been any deeper than it was already? I don’t know. It was so
deep before, I didn’t think it could possibly be deeper! But just like
you don’t think your love for somebody could possibly be more profound
only to find out the next day, month, or year it’s even more a part of
you than it was previously, the knowledge of what Jesus has done for me
is even more profoundly burned into my awareness than it was the day
before yesterday.

I celebrate these Holy days with more
reverence than any other time of the year. When I was little my
favorite holidays were Halloween and Christmas. I loved watching scary
movies curled up with my mother. And, at Christmas, I loved sitting on
the couch with the lights turned low and singing Christmas Carols while
I looked at our tree. Presents were nice, but that wasn’t the focus.
Santa was cool, but the REAL joy of Christmas was that I truly believed
back then that on that one day of the year, nothing bad happened. I
read stories about the German and American soldiers stopping their
fighting to sing Silent Night and stuff like that and I honestly
believed that, on Christmas, everybody’s higher nature would rise to
the surface. I believed no one would steal on Christmas and that
everyone would give to the needy. I believed that reconciliations would
take place and that there would be no anger. I thought all children got
presents and all people were fed. Only as I grew up did I realize the
fallacy of this and my love of Christmas waned.

When I
recommitted my life to Jesus, however, Thanksgiving and the Holy Week
became powerful times for me. They became the most significant time of
year with the Holy Week eventually being the most important to me. Each
year at this time I seem to recommit and my walk receives a new
anointing, my love of God is re-ignited and my faith is strengthened.
And tomorrow I will feel the greatest joy of the entire year when I
wake up before dawn and imagine the joy the women felt when they went
to His tomb only to find He had Risen!