Our congregation will gather for the highest, holiest days of the Triduum, The Three Days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter. This liturgy is the longest of any liturgies of the church and intends to offer Christian disciples the sacred opportunity to contemplate the mystery of redemption.
It is important to note that Lutheran Christians observe all of Holy Week as a time of focusing on the holy history of Jesus Christ. It is not simply a time of remembering; it is much more than that. Many of us grew up inside and many outside the Lutheran Church. This fact does not seem to make a difference with respect to the orientation of worshipers during Holy Week. Even Lutherans have been heavily influenced by the Swiss reformed tradition which viewed the liturgies of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as primarily a time of remembering what happened to Jesus and consequently to experience grief over the death of Jesus.
The influence of this restrictive perspective can still be felt today in many churches where the Lord’s Supper is celebrated as a rite by which Jesus’ death is solemnly remembered. The mood is often sad to reinforce the feeling of remorse at human sin and grief at Jesus death. The Lutheran practice establishes a different perspective at the beginning of the Sunday liturgy with such canticles as, “This is the feast of victory for our God.”
The liturgy of The Three Days is a celebration of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The concentrated time of the Three Days gives worshipers the opportunity to read their own lives and historical events from the perspective of the proclamation of God’s victory that is never relieved of its mystery even as its power is experienced through the events
Maundy Thursday
The Individual Absolution
(forgiveness)
The New Commandment
to love one another
The Foot Washing relived
through the Liturgy of the Word
The Holy Communion
in celebration of God’s
power to bring new life
The Stripping of the Altar
to prepare for the
celebration of the cross
Good Friday
The Reading of the Passion
from the Gospel according to John
The Solemn Prayers
The Adoration of the Crucified One
The Vigil of Easter
The Paschal Fire and Lighting
of the new Paschal Candle
The Solemn Procession
into the darkened nave
The Exsultet,
the Easter Proclamation
chanted by the cantor and spreading of light
The Readings of God’s
mighty acts in history
with emphasis on water
The Easter Proclamation
The first Eucharist of Easter
On Good Friday the reading of the passion narrative will be followed by the Solemn Prayers and the Procession of the Cross and Adoration of the Crucified including the Solemn Reproaches. Aspects of this form of devotion have already been a part of the Taizé service on the first Saturday of each month. The pattern of the Three Days is found in Evangelical Lutheran Worship on page 262-265. Members who would like to have a full text of the Solemn Prayers and Reproaches in advance may request it from the church office.
The pastors hope that you will make your decision to participate this year in the liturgy of The Three Days. It is the most powerful way to place one’s life in the context of God’s mighty acts in Jesus Christ. It is in the context that we discover how to “read” our lives in a world that more often appears godless than does it appear God-filled. Beyond the wall we call evil, behind the veil of tears that flow from all the wrong afflicted and all the pain innocently suffered, there is the victory of God in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.