One Story, Many Parts

Beloved:

I mostly work at home through Holy Week because of all the worship planning and sermon writing.  An extrovert like me needs to be away from people.  Only dogs and chickens to talk to out here, and none of them are Christian that I can tell.  They are utterly without preference for this or that line of liturgy.  

Holy Week preparation seemed so strange the first twenty years of my preaching life.  Writing Good Friday liturgy the same days I studied for the Easter sermon felt peculiar and improper.  Finally it’s beginning to feel like what I believe it really is:  one story.  One story, with many parts, that takes days and days to tell.  Or maybe it takes years and years and years.  The story didn’t happen all on one day and I’m glad the church decided not to tell it on one day either.  But instead to let us sit with the horror and darkness of Good Friday long enough truly to welcome the joy and the light of Resurrection Sunday.  
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These are our High Holy Days.  I very much look forward to seeing you for the Service of Tenebrae at 7:30 PM on Good Friday and our Easter Feast with Worship beginning at 9 AM on Sunday morning.

~ peace & prayers,
​pastor annette