Good morning…
As a church staff, we sprinkled ourselves into the pews of our wide-open sanctuary to commemorate Maundy-Thursday together. Music. Prayers. Scriptures. Sermon. Communion. We experienced the memory of Jesus’ final moments wrapped in the flesh of a man.
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:37-39, NIV).
Then together we witnessed the stripping of the altar as I read from our bulletin. “Visuals from the cross and on the steps: wooden cross, crown of thorns, whip, bag of coins, hammer, three nails, palm branches, and a lantern.” Symbols from Jesus’ last week on earth were dismantled and gathered in a big basket before being ushered out of sight. The purple hangings from the pulpit, lectern, and altar were silently stripped and carried away. The communion elements, lit candles, and altar cross were quietly removed and carried away. The purple vestments of the minsters were tenderly taken off, folded, and carried out of sight, leaving only the stark black of their ceremonial robes. A swath of black fabric was draped from a frail, rustic wood cross left central on the altar. Another black cloak encased the cross, a cross held and lifted by the head pastor as he took the rear of the final procession. Associate pastors walked ahead of him, tying black ribbons from each of the lit candles on the pew stands lining the central aisle.
“God out into the world remembering our Savior,” said the minister, “who was crucified, dead and buried, for you and for me.”
When our hearts were stripped bare, we experienced the tolling of the passing bell. “During the middle ages, a passing bell rung during the last earthly hours of a dying person,” silently said our bulletin. “This was done in belief that evil spirits waiting to seize the departing soul would flee in terror at the bell sound. It also alerted townspeople to stop their activities and to pray for the dying person.”
We, the townspeople privileged to be on staff at Northside Church, stopped our activities at 1:30 pm yesterday, praying together for our dying Jesus, before living the unspoken benediction: “Depart in reverent silence.”
…Sue…
