Holy Week and Easter
Joint Services with Immanuel; St Elias; and St. Francis.
Holy Monday April 18: Spoken Eucharist -passion according to Matthew, 7:30 pm
Holy Tuesday April 19:
Spoken Eucharist -the passion according to Luke, 7:30 pm
Holy Wednesday April 20: Spoken Eucharist -the passion according to Mark
The Three Days Maundy Thursday, April 21: Maundy Thursday service 7:30 pm Service of foot washing and Holy Communion
Good Friday, April 22: Good Friday service 7:30 Adoration of the Cross
Easter Vigil, Saturday April 23: Easter Vigil 8:30 pm* (Note: new time this year) with Batisms and Affirmation of Baptism, champagne reception
Easter Sunday April 24: Easter Sunday Service 10:30 am
Easter breakfast at 9:00 am Easter Egg hunt at 9:45 am *this is a correction from Previous announcement, which stated erroneously that the Easter Vigil would be at 7:30 p.m. |
Showing posts with label Holy Week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holy Week. Show all posts
Friday, March 18
Holy Week and Easter Services
Monday, March 29
Holy Week and Easter Services
Join us for our joint Holy Week and Easter worship services with Immanuel Lutheran Church and St Elias Christian Church.
Thursday April 1
Maundy Thursday Service: Foot Washing and Holy communion 7:30 pm
Friday April 2
Good Friday Service: Adoration of the Holy Life Giving Cross 7:30 pm
Saturday April 3
Easter Vigil 7:30 pm
Sunday April 4
Easter Potluck breakfast 9:00 am
Easter worship with Holy communion 10:30 am
We will not have a worship service at 5 pm on Easter Sunday April 4. Our regular 5 pm worship time returns Sunday April 11.
Thursday April 1
Maundy Thursday Service: Foot Washing and Holy communion 7:30 pm
Friday April 2
Good Friday Service: Adoration of the Holy Life Giving Cross 7:30 pm
Saturday April 3
Easter Vigil 7:30 pm
Sunday April 4
Easter Potluck breakfast 9:00 am
Easter worship with Holy communion 10:30 am
We will not have a worship service at 5 pm on Easter Sunday April 4. Our regular 5 pm worship time returns Sunday April 11.
Monday, April 2
Sermon: Palm Sunday
Palm Sunday, Year C
April 1, 2007
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
The Reverend Laura Gottardi-Littell
RCL Readings: Liturgy of the Palms: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Luke 19:28-40
Liturgy of the Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a, Ps. 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 22:14-23:56
***
Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem starts out so well. A crowd has gathered to welcome their champion. They strew his path with palms and shout “Hosanna!” What a wonderful welcome into the city of prophets.
And so today, as we re-create that hero’s homecoming, we begin with a joyful noise, palms, and a procession. But not far into our service we sense the change. What started off well is not going so well. Suddenly we are singing mournful hymns and there’s tension in the air, foreboding. Jesus has come to Jerusalem not only as beloved hero but also as martyr. He has come… to die.
Many had hoped he would be a great leader, a warrior king to free them from the oppression of Rome. They will be gravely disappointed. Those who love him and have to watch him die, will be heartsick.
Many in 1st century Palestine wanted a liberator who with great power and might would topple the dominion of Rome. That’s not what they got. They got Jesus, who was not about force. The revolution he sought was not a violent uprising. His power to liberate was of another kind. Although he has delighted and healed so many, Jesus has angered and disappointed others.
We are not so unlike the people of Jesus’s day.
We have many of the same hopes and fears.
We too can feel angry and cheated when we don’t get what we want. Or what we think we want.
I remember a song from my coming-of age-years, a Rolling Stones song, that said: “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find….you get what you need.”
How does Jesus give the world not what we want, but what we need?
As it was in Jesus’s day, our world is a competitive, stratified place that tells us what we should want. Status. Power. Money. We should be winners, we should be tough, and it’s OK to step on other people to get where we’re going.
But Jesus was a savior who emptied himself, as Paul writes to the Philippians. Jesus didn’t try to exploit his power, like the Roman emperors and other power brokers of his time. Jesus didn’t see his equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself of the need for power, status and wealth. He hung out with poor and sick folk, outcasts, and people on the wrong side of the Law. He didn’t placate the Roman or Jewish authorities. In fact he challenged them.
SO if Jesus walked among us today, and we didn’t recognize him, would we label him a fool, loser, or rebel? And cast him aside? Would we say that he was not the kind of leader we wanted? Would we shout “Crucify him!”
As it was in Jesus’ day, our world is not only hung up on power and money, it’s also a violent place. And Jesus was not into violence. When Jesus is captured in the garden, one of his disciples cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave to try to free Jesus. “No more of this!” Jesus tells his disciple. If violence is what’s needed for Jesus to save himself, than he wants none of it.
So if Jesus, who rejected the use of force, walked among us today, and we didn’t recognize him, would we call him a wimp, a crazy pacifist, unpatriotic? Would we reject him and shout: “Crucify him!”
The Christian message is deeply challenging. It challenges what we want, or think we want. What our world tells us to want.
But God likes to give us what we really need.
God gave us Jesus to meet our deepest human needs.
To show us where real power lies. Not in status or money. Not in the use of force.
Jesus is a winner but of a different kind.
By losing at the world’s games, he wins by the heavenly standards.
By emptying himself, he changes the world forever.
In dying, he destroys death.
Now that’s power.
Ghandi, Martin Luther King and others have known the power of this self-emptying, nonviolent love. And living it out, made enormous changes.
As Christians, we live in tension between earthly and heavenly notions of power. The power of the sword versus the power of the cross.
The Christian life, if taken seriously, is largely about self-emptying. Giving up our desire to be first, right, powerful. Giving up, or at least questioning, much of what we want and becoming more and more open to what God wants. Trying to weed out parts of ourselves that are self-absorbed cruel, that accept the need for violence. The parts that shout “Crucify him!” and mean it in today’s passion play.
To be honest, there are times when I’m not sure how much self-emptying I’m willing to do. I’m a human being, and Jesus is asking me, asking all of us, to evolve, to be nearer to the angels than the beasts. To go against, or at least seriously grapple with, some core values of the world. I love Jesus so much and yet…he asks so much. It’s hard.
So if you feel conflicted today, at this Palm Sunday service, you’re not alone. And you have good reason to feel that way. A king rides into Jerusalem in majesty and ends up on a cross. We start out thinking we’re at a party and end up at a funeral. We watch a good man, the best kind of person, God’s own son, handed over to an inhuman death. And worst of all, he dies in part because of us. Because of the way the world is, how human beings are. Because of what we think we want: power, status, the use of force. He hasn’t played those games. So now he must die. All hope seems lost.
And yet………God knows our deepest needs. God knows we don’t need more domination. We don’t need more violence. We need a savior who through self-emptying, non-violent love can show us the path of life. Can help us evolve. And God provides that. God has given us a way out of our endless cycles of sin and death. It is joyful and liberating to break out of those cycles by following Christ. Yes, there are some losses when we empty ourselves, but the gains are incalculable. We gain freedom and peace when we lose our bondage to self-seeking and violence. And that is the good news today on Palm Sunday. That is the joy of Easter. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has given us not what we thought we wanted, or what the world tells us to want, but what we needed most. AMEN.
April 1, 2007
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
The Reverend Laura Gottardi-Littell
RCL Readings: Liturgy of the Palms: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Luke 19:28-40
Liturgy of the Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a, Ps. 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 22:14-23:56
***
Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem starts out so well. A crowd has gathered to welcome their champion. They strew his path with palms and shout “Hosanna!” What a wonderful welcome into the city of prophets.
And so today, as we re-create that hero’s homecoming, we begin with a joyful noise, palms, and a procession. But not far into our service we sense the change. What started off well is not going so well. Suddenly we are singing mournful hymns and there’s tension in the air, foreboding. Jesus has come to Jerusalem not only as beloved hero but also as martyr. He has come… to die.
Many had hoped he would be a great leader, a warrior king to free them from the oppression of Rome. They will be gravely disappointed. Those who love him and have to watch him die, will be heartsick.
Many in 1st century Palestine wanted a liberator who with great power and might would topple the dominion of Rome. That’s not what they got. They got Jesus, who was not about force. The revolution he sought was not a violent uprising. His power to liberate was of another kind. Although he has delighted and healed so many, Jesus has angered and disappointed others.
We are not so unlike the people of Jesus’s day.
We have many of the same hopes and fears.
We too can feel angry and cheated when we don’t get what we want. Or what we think we want.
I remember a song from my coming-of age-years, a Rolling Stones song, that said: “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find….you get what you need.”
How does Jesus give the world not what we want, but what we need?
As it was in Jesus’s day, our world is a competitive, stratified place that tells us what we should want. Status. Power. Money. We should be winners, we should be tough, and it’s OK to step on other people to get where we’re going.
But Jesus was a savior who emptied himself, as Paul writes to the Philippians. Jesus didn’t try to exploit his power, like the Roman emperors and other power brokers of his time. Jesus didn’t see his equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself of the need for power, status and wealth. He hung out with poor and sick folk, outcasts, and people on the wrong side of the Law. He didn’t placate the Roman or Jewish authorities. In fact he challenged them.
SO if Jesus walked among us today, and we didn’t recognize him, would we label him a fool, loser, or rebel? And cast him aside? Would we say that he was not the kind of leader we wanted? Would we shout “Crucify him!”
As it was in Jesus’ day, our world is not only hung up on power and money, it’s also a violent place. And Jesus was not into violence. When Jesus is captured in the garden, one of his disciples cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave to try to free Jesus. “No more of this!” Jesus tells his disciple. If violence is what’s needed for Jesus to save himself, than he wants none of it.
So if Jesus, who rejected the use of force, walked among us today, and we didn’t recognize him, would we call him a wimp, a crazy pacifist, unpatriotic? Would we reject him and shout: “Crucify him!”
The Christian message is deeply challenging. It challenges what we want, or think we want. What our world tells us to want.
But God likes to give us what we really need.
God gave us Jesus to meet our deepest human needs.
To show us where real power lies. Not in status or money. Not in the use of force.
Jesus is a winner but of a different kind.
By losing at the world’s games, he wins by the heavenly standards.
By emptying himself, he changes the world forever.
In dying, he destroys death.
Now that’s power.
Ghandi, Martin Luther King and others have known the power of this self-emptying, nonviolent love. And living it out, made enormous changes.
As Christians, we live in tension between earthly and heavenly notions of power. The power of the sword versus the power of the cross.
The Christian life, if taken seriously, is largely about self-emptying. Giving up our desire to be first, right, powerful. Giving up, or at least questioning, much of what we want and becoming more and more open to what God wants. Trying to weed out parts of ourselves that are self-absorbed cruel, that accept the need for violence. The parts that shout “Crucify him!” and mean it in today’s passion play.
To be honest, there are times when I’m not sure how much self-emptying I’m willing to do. I’m a human being, and Jesus is asking me, asking all of us, to evolve, to be nearer to the angels than the beasts. To go against, or at least seriously grapple with, some core values of the world. I love Jesus so much and yet…he asks so much. It’s hard.
So if you feel conflicted today, at this Palm Sunday service, you’re not alone. And you have good reason to feel that way. A king rides into Jerusalem in majesty and ends up on a cross. We start out thinking we’re at a party and end up at a funeral. We watch a good man, the best kind of person, God’s own son, handed over to an inhuman death. And worst of all, he dies in part because of us. Because of the way the world is, how human beings are. Because of what we think we want: power, status, the use of force. He hasn’t played those games. So now he must die. All hope seems lost.
And yet………God knows our deepest needs. God knows we don’t need more domination. We don’t need more violence. We need a savior who through self-emptying, non-violent love can show us the path of life. Can help us evolve. And God provides that. God has given us a way out of our endless cycles of sin and death. It is joyful and liberating to break out of those cycles by following Christ. Yes, there are some losses when we empty ourselves, but the gains are incalculable. We gain freedom and peace when we lose our bondage to self-seeking and violence. And that is the good news today on Palm Sunday. That is the joy of Easter. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has given us not what we thought we wanted, or what the world tells us to want, but what we needed most. AMEN.
Friday, March 30
Reconciler Update
We are about the enter Holy Week. This week we deliberately and liturgicaly walk the way of the cross into the celebration of Easter. On Palm Sunday we Enter Jerusalem with those who shout Hosanna as Jesus Christ rides into the city on a donkey. Then we hear the passion narrative which prepares us for the three days: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday which leads from Jesus last supper with his disciples and Jesus arrest, to crucifixion and then on to the joy of Easter, and the Resurrection.
As we celebrate these holy days my hope is that your faith will be renewed that we will find in this celebration and proclamation the center of our faith and action in the world. It is these events we celebrate in Holy Week and Easter that provide the logic and the ground of our action and compassion in the world. Here we find the Gospel in all its radical world shattering power.
Announcements:
Holy Week and Easter
We are having joint worship services Holy Week and Easter Day with the Immanuel and St Elias Lutheran congregations. On Easter Sunday, we will not have our regular evening service at 6:00 p.m., but will have a joint service with Immanuel at 10:30 a.m.
For Holy week, there will be a Maundy Thursday service at 7:30 p.m., a Good Friday service at 7:30 p.m., and an Easter Vigil service on Holy Saturday at 7:30 p.m. There will also be a festive reception following the Vigil. These are gorgeous services, each with their own unique character and flavor. We hope you will join us for as many of them as you can.
If you are interested in taking part in leadership roles in any of the above services please talk with Laura, Larry or Tripp. Monte Johnson is asking for volunteers from all three congregations to read Scripture, help with artistic displays in the sanctuary and Founder's Hall and help set up Founder's Hall for the Vigil and Easter Sunday breakfast. If you're interested in singing in the Immanuel Choir -- and are willing to attend at least two rehearsals, Wednesdays at 7:30 at Immanuel -- let one of the pastors know. Thanks.
Bible Study
We'll begin a new Bible Study April 18. This will be a four-week series focusing on the travel diaries of Egeria, a fourth-century Spanish nun and pilgrim. Through Egeria's diaries we have compelling information about how early Christians worshipped. Come and see how early Christian worship relates to what we do on Sundays at Reconciler, and bring your questions and thoughts about worship.
Worship Committee
Would like to invite all interested Reconcilers to come to a worship committee meeting -- likely at Kaffein in Evanston on a Wednesday night -- to discuss such hot-button liturgical items as:
Which version of the Lord's prayer we want to use? What kind of processional cross do we want to purchase? And....what about inclusive language?
Suggested dates are Wednesday evening, May 16 or 23. Stay tuned and let us know which date would work better for you.
In Christ,
Larry Kamphausen
As we celebrate these holy days my hope is that your faith will be renewed that we will find in this celebration and proclamation the center of our faith and action in the world. It is these events we celebrate in Holy Week and Easter that provide the logic and the ground of our action and compassion in the world. Here we find the Gospel in all its radical world shattering power.
Announcements:
Holy Week and Easter
We are having joint worship services Holy Week and Easter Day with the Immanuel and St Elias Lutheran congregations. On Easter Sunday, we will not have our regular evening service at 6:00 p.m., but will have a joint service with Immanuel at 10:30 a.m.
For Holy week, there will be a Maundy Thursday service at 7:30 p.m., a Good Friday service at 7:30 p.m., and an Easter Vigil service on Holy Saturday at 7:30 p.m. There will also be a festive reception following the Vigil. These are gorgeous services, each with their own unique character and flavor. We hope you will join us for as many of them as you can.
If you are interested in taking part in leadership roles in any of the above services please talk with Laura, Larry or Tripp. Monte Johnson is asking for volunteers from all three congregations to read Scripture, help with artistic displays in the sanctuary and Founder's Hall and help set up Founder's Hall for the Vigil and Easter Sunday breakfast. If you're interested in singing in the Immanuel Choir -- and are willing to attend at least two rehearsals, Wednesdays at 7:30 at Immanuel -- let one of the pastors know. Thanks.
Bible Study
We'll begin a new Bible Study April 18. This will be a four-week series focusing on the travel diaries of Egeria, a fourth-century Spanish nun and pilgrim. Through Egeria's diaries we have compelling information about how early Christians worshipped. Come and see how early Christian worship relates to what we do on Sundays at Reconciler, and bring your questions and thoughts about worship.
Worship Committee
Would like to invite all interested Reconcilers to come to a worship committee meeting -- likely at Kaffein in Evanston on a Wednesday night -- to discuss such hot-button liturgical items as:
Which version of the Lord's prayer we want to use? What kind of processional cross do we want to purchase? And....what about inclusive language?
Suggested dates are Wednesday evening, May 16 or 23. Stay tuned and let us know which date would work better for you.
In Christ,
Larry Kamphausen
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