Today is Good Friday. Being the middle of the day, the time when scripture says that Jesus was crucified, it is quiet. The church is open for silent prayer (our liturgy is in the evening). A couple of people have come for reconciliation. The church office is now closed for the weekend. The phone is not ringing. Except for the choral music I am playing from iTunes, it is quiet.
This is one of my favorite times in Holy Week. I appreciate the quiet of Good Friday afternoon, a break from the busyness of the Holy Week preparations. All of the liturgy booklets are done, we've experience the Sunday of the Passion and Maundy Thursday, and the fullness of preparations for the Great Vigil is still almost 24 hours away.
Last night, during the Maundy Thursday liturgy I had one of those frighteningly intense experiences that come rarely. I was feeling particularly uninspired throughout the day as I prepared my sermon. I was definitely not happy with what I had to offer. Perhaps it was that discontent that allowed me to be open to the Spirit, to abandon my plans and allow another to speak through me.
Before the liturgy began I was standing in a corner of the church, a corner I never stand in. From that vantage point, I could see outside through the windows of the church. I saw two women taking a walk on a beautiful spring evening, apparently oblivious to the fact that we were gathering for worship in Holy Week. I then looked at the congregation, smaller than in the past for this liturgy, and I began to wonder if what we were doing had any real connection to the lives of people in the parish and in the community. I began to think that possibly we had this all wrong, doing this ritual and worship in the church. Perhaps we are supposed to do this in a way that connects with our lives. Isn't that what the Incarnation (God becoming flesh in Jesus) is all about anyway, the divine connecting with our daily lives?
I then thought about Passover, that it had begun the evening before. For Passover, Jewish families do not go to the synagogue but spend that first night at home, around the table, sharing a sacred meal and sacred rituals at home. They might invite friends and family over. Whoever is there, the ritual occurs in a normal, daily place -- the family table. In this way, Passover -- the ancient festival that celebrates Israel's deliverance by God from slavery in Egypt -- becomes connected to the daily lives of those who participate.
Is it possible that Christians have gotten it wrong over the centuries? Is it possible that we've so associated our ancient rituals with "going to church" that they've lost any connection to our daily lives? If so, perhaps this explains to some extent why we are losing our "memory," our collective connection to the stories and rituals that remind us who we are and who God is in our lives.
As Maundy Thursday reminds us, we participate in these rituals so we can remember. "Do this in remembrance of me," Jesus says. To remember in this way is not simply to be reminded, but to bring into the present that which happened in the past. When we remember, we are reconnected with the divine promise and can find the hope and faith that sustain our lives.
What might happen if we took the Holy Week rituals and did them at home? What might happen if, instead of decorating for Easter, we stripped our tables as we strip the altar; if we washed the feet of each other at home (or some equivalent act of service; if we put up the stations of the cross throughout our homes to remind us in every room of Jesus' journey to death? What might happen if we waited to decorate for Easter late Saturday night or early Sunday morning? What if we got up at dawn on Sunday and only then welcomed Easter with a spring table cloth and flowers and decorated eggs?
Might we become more connected to the realities of what Holy Week is about? Might all of this become more connected to our daily lives? Might we experience more closely Jesus' sacrifice? Might we embrace Easter more fully? Might we remember more clearly who we are and what God has done for us through Jesus?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. But it seems worth a try. It is clear to me that society around us, and even many of the people who sit in the pews on Sundays, are disconnecting from the story and the rituals we've practiced for two millennia. If we don't find a way to reconnect them to God through the stories, we will move even closer to a sort of Christian amnesia.
So, this Good Friday, take Jesus home with you. Strip away Easter for 36-48 hours. Let your homes be as barren as the altar at church, stripped of all ornamentation until Easter. Stay in the quiet and remember, remember that God loves us enough to die that we might live.
I'm guessing if we do this, Easter will be that much more glorious.
