The darkest night
This service is usually better attended at Creator than Maundy Thursday, and this year was no exception. This was true of the services in my youth as well.
It is easier, I suppose, to get caught up in the drama. There is also a tradition of focused attention on the last words of someone who is dying as if this summarizes a life.
It makes me think what inscription Jesus might have wanted written, rather than Pilate's as the sign on the cross. Love you? With you? Remember me? Nothing?
This was also another Tenebrae service, like last year. A Tenebrae service features the gradual extinguishing of candles to represent the fading loyalty of the disciples and Christ’s journey into death, culminating in a "strepitus" (loud noise) symbolizing the earthquake/tomb.
Good Friday services are always hard for me. I feel the story is too big. I don’t have words to explain it, and don’t want to explain it. What was accomplished on the cross and in the resurrection? Love somehow sets us free, brings us through our Red Sea crises, breaks our hearts and gives us hope. I do feel the weight of it, wondering how to voice the reality of grief and good news both.
Yes, we sang our traditional songs and heard the stories from scripture that we have listened to for years. We watched an artist's depiction of Jesus' last words at the beginning of theisservice. The altar was reverently stripped to close the service.
We left contemplating death and the loss of hope it brings again.
Rather than an Easter Vigil service, this worship will be our sole preparation for Creator's Easter service.
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