HOly Week 2025
We invite you to join us as we celebrate the feasts of Holy Week as we prepare for the highest feast of the year: Easter Sunday. Below is our schedule and an explanation of each feast day in case you have never been to a Holy Week before.
Palm Sunday is a feast dedicated to Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey where the people of Israel greeted him with palm branches and claiming him King of the Jews. The King has finally entered the capital and those who have been waiting recognize it. But at the readings halfway through the service, we hear how those same people called for a criminal to be saved instead of Jesus and called for him to be crucified.
The Stations of the Cross has been a formative part of the Christian tradition for some time. In this service, we walk through the 14 stations of the cross that capture different moments of Christ's journey to the mountain. We spend time reading scripture, praying and reflecting on how those stages draw us into the love of Christ.
Maundy Thursday is the celebration of the last supper. The service starts on a happy tone as we remember how Jesus served at the table with his disciples and enjoyed a meal with them. We also see that this is where Jesus institutes the eucharist with his disciples passing the bread and wine among them so they can eat his body and blood. However, as we get closer to the end of the service, it gets interrupted by Jesus being taken captive by the roman soldiers. In seemingly the blink of an eye, everything changes for them. Just as the dinner that night was interrupted, so our night is as we strip the table and getting ready for Good Friday.
Good Friday is the most solemn fast of the year. Christians are encouraged to fast as they partake in some of the same suffering as Jesus. As he was being beaten, brought on trial, and eventually hung on the cross, he endured more suffering than any human as he would bear the weight of sin in the world. As we remember this brutal and vicious death, we ask the same questions that the early Jews asked: Is this really the Messiah, the savior of the world?
"The Great Vigil, when observed, is the first liturgy of Easter Day. It is celebrated at a convenient time between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter morning. It is appropriate that the service begin in darkness. The liturgy normally consists of four parts: The Service of Light... The Service of Lessons... Holy Baptism... Holy Eucharist." (2019 Book of Common Prayer.
Easter Sunday is the highest feast of the year! This is the great feast where we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and where all of history changed forever. Year after year Christians celebrate this feast as a sign of Jesus' defeat over sin and death. His resurrection marks the proclamation to the world of his defeat of sin and death once and for all.
