Services in Holy Week and at Easter
Holy Week
By taking part in the services in Holy Week, we share in Christ’s own journey, from the triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to the empty tomb on the morning of Easter Day. The procession with palms, which observed in Jerusalem since the fourth century, is accompanied by the reading of the Passion Narrative, in which the whole story of the week is told. Maundy Thursday contains a rich complex of themes: humble Christian service expressed through Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet, the institution of the Eucharist and the perfection of Christ’s loving obedience through his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.
After stripping all decoration from the church, we keep a vigil of prayer, and Thursday passes into Good Friday. On the afternoon of Good Friday we hear the reading of the Passion according to John and we pray at the foot of the Cross. Consecrated bread remaining from the Maundy Thursday Eucharist is used for communion on Good Friday. The church continues bare and empty through the following day, which is a day without a liturgy: there can be no adequate way of representing the death of the Son of God, other than silence and desolation. But within this silence there grows a sense of peace and completion, and then rising excitement as the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday draws near.
This solemn season preserves some of the oldest texts still in current use, and recounts the deepest and most fundamental Christian memories.
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Eastertide
The most important moment in the Church’s year is the festival day of Easter. Easter Sunday begins the great Fifty Days of Eastertide. The Church celebrates the rising of Jesus Christ from the dead to new life.
Early Christians gave the name Pentecost to this joyful and celebration-filled fifty-day period. The Paschal (Easter) Candle is blessed and the lit for the first time during the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night and it stands at the front of the church for all the Eastertide services. The Alleluia appears frequently in the words of services and in our hymns.
White and gold vestments and decorations emphasize the joy and brightness of the season.
From very early times, on the fortieth day of Eastertide (or often nowadays on the Sunday after the fortieth day) the Church celebrates the Ascension – the moment when the resurrected Lord, Jesus Christ, returns to be with the Father in heaven. Jesus commissions his disciples to continue his work, promising the gift of the Holy Spirit, and then he is no longer among them in the flesh. The gift of the Holy Spirit to the first disciples on the day of Pentecost marks the end of Eastertide and, in many ways, the beginning of the Church as we know it today.