Holy Week is the week leading up to Easter Sunday. It is a time for remembering the culminating events of Jesus’ earthly life and reliving the most sacred moments in the history of the world. Our worship services lead us through Jesus’ dramatic victory with all of its twists and turns, from the “Hosanna!” of Palm Sunday, to the “Crucify!” of Good Friday, and ultimately to the “Alleluia!” of Easter morning.

The Great Triduum is the time from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday. The earliest Christians rightly recognized Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection as one single event. Our personal and public acts of worship from Thursday night to Sunday morning will follow this ancient tradition, celebrating the single event of Jesus’ passover from life to death to life again.

Maundy Thursday is the Thursday prior to Easter Sunday. We gather for worship to commemorate Jesus’ final meal with his disciples, to hear his new command to love one another as he loves, and to remember his institution of the Lord’s Supper. The service concludes with the stripping of the altar as we are hurled into the darkness of Jesus’ trial, torture, and crucifixion. Those who are able, from this moment until the Easter feast, fast from all food; refrain from business, shopping, and pleasure; and practice meditation, prayer, Scripture reading, and silence. 

Good Friday, the key day in the entire Lenten journey, is the Friday prior to Easter Sunday. We call it “Good” because we know how the story ends. Our focus is not on the senseless human suffering of Jesus, but on the suffering of God in human flesh to redeem us from the curse of sin. The worship service uses readings and hymns centered on the passion story. It concludes in darkness and silence in order to commemorate the horror and magnitude of sin and its consequences.

Holy Saturday is the final day in Lent. There are no worship services. We are overwhelmed with the despair that the disciples must have felt as the Lord Christ lay in the tomb. We prepare for Easter by cleaning house and preparing food for the Easter feast.

Join us on Easter morning as we celebrate Christ’s resurrection and break our fast together as a church community after Easter Sunrise Service for a churchwide breakfast.