RockTheDesert

WCW - In Memory of Mary

Today is Watercooler Wednesday! WCW is a collaboration of creative people who gather around the watercooler at Randy Elrod's Ethos blog every Wednesday. Click HERE to read Randy's latest WCW post and to join the conversation!

This week is Holy Week - started on Palm Sunday will culminate on Easter Sunday. I found some great Holy Week devotionals at Austin Stone Community Church. Today's devotional features a 3-dimensional original painting by Christina Drake entitled "In Memory of Mary."

Artist's Note: This picture is called "In Memory of Mary" and is the worshipful response of one of our partners to the picture of the woman anointing our Lord.  Our artist wanted to capture the picture of submission and sacrifice of the woman, as well as the many colors of grace of our God.  The painting is also three-dimensional, with a shelf at the bottom filled with brushes, tools and entire tubes of paints.  "No amount of paint, tools or expensive perfume can ever compare to what Christ did on the Cross for us..."  Artist: Christina Drake.

Palm Sunday

I really want to experience Holy Week in a meaningful, personal and relevant way this year. Today was Palm Sunday. Defined as:  On the sixth Sunday of Lent we commemorate Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Worship services include blessing of the palms and a procession. The liturgical color is red. Also known as "Fig Sunday."

We decided to try three distinctly different church services.

We went to Christ Church Lutheran on Saturday night - they have a traditional service in the Chapel. Simple, intimate, kneeling, confession, prayers, scripture, message, blessing, 34 minutes later we were ordering wings at a sports bar down the street. Sunday morning we went to Fellowship North. Non-traditional service. "Let The Praises Ring" - "How Great Thou Art" - "Hallelujah To My King" - "Here I Am To Worship" - Message, Video, Testimony. Sunday evening we went to Christ Lutheran at Desert Ridge. Contemporary service. Very nice people. Brand new church meeting in a school. Palm cross strung on a ribbon placed around our neck. Upbeat songs. Great message. Dinner served afterward.

Did we worship? Did we observe Palm Sunday in a way that was meaningful and personal and relevant? I've got to say that if I combined various parts of each service into one service, added the "blessing of the palms and a procession" it would have been just right.

I hope to write a song this week. My response to Holy Week. We'll see how that goes!

Holy Week

I've been doing a little bit of research on the "Christian" calendar. Although I've attended church since birth, I've never been a part of a church which followed the Christian calendar. December 2007 was the first time I remember really observing Advent. I absolutely loved it. I think our church did a fantastic job of making it relevant and beautiful and meaningful and personal.

I'm going to focus this whole week on observing Holy Week. I'll begin with a post on Palm Sunday tomorrow. Stay tuned!

I found this summary of the Christian calendar on Origins Church (NYC) website.

For those of you who may come from a tradition that doesn’t practice the Christian Year, it is listed simply as follows.

ADVENT is a time to wait.                

CHRISTMAS is a time to rejoice.

EPIPHANY is a time to witness.                

LENT is a time for repentance and renewal.

THE GREAT TRIDUUM is a time to enter death.                

EASTER is a time to express the resurrected life.

PENTECOST is a time for power and life.                

KINGDOMTIDE is a time for study and evangelism.

•Holy Week, the week before Easter, is a week of meditation on the Passion of Christ.  The major days are Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter.  “The various traditional rites of the week...probably began to develop at Jerusalem in the 4th century, when pilgrimages became possible, and Christians could indulge a natural desire to re-enact that last scenes of the life of Christ in liturgical drama.”

•Palm Sunday initiates Holy Week and usually involves a procession representing Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem; this procession is “attested...as early as the 4th century” in Jerusalem.  “According to the current rite there is a general blessing of the palms held by the people, if possible in a different building from that in which the Mass is to be celebrated.  After the reading of the account of the triumphal entry, and a short homily, the clergy and the people process into the church, singing Psalms or the traditional ‘Glory, Laus’ or some other chant.”                

•Maundy Thursday - The word “Maundy” is “derived from the first antiphon of the ceremony of the washing of the feet, ‘mandatum novum’ (John 13:34).  The day is for the recognition of the institution of the Eucharist and was attested to as early as the fth century by the Council of Hippo (393).

•Good Friday is a “day of fast, abstinence, and penance, and in the RC Church, Good Friday, together with Holy Saturday, are the only two days in the year on which no Celebration of the Mass takes place.”  The day’s liturgical color is red.  The observation of this day originates in the very early part of the church.                 

•Holy Saturday is also known as “Easter Even” (in Book of Common Prayer), and “it commemorates the resting of Christ’s body in the tomb.”

•Easter is “the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ, being the greatest and oldest feast of the Christian Church.”  “Eastertide” refers to the period from Easter to Whitsunday.