On Holy Week Worship with Kids

(Adapted from a message sent to my congregation's parents and grandparents)

Dear Parents and Grandparents,

Just a word about Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services as it relates to children:

I have no childhood memories of Good Friday or Maundy Thursday. Of course my understanding of the story of Jesus involved the Last Supper, his death, and the cross, but my tangible, communal experience of Holy Week moved from the playful joy of the Palm Sunday processional to the redemptive celebration of the resurrection the next Sunday on Easter.  Other than my mom’s private prayerful practice of fasting half the day on Good Friday, that day didn’t register much for me.  

In retrospect, the experiential, communal, church story of Holy Week for me was mostly positivity and cheer.  It wasn’t until much later that I came to experience the darkness the cross: the experience of God with us coming into our suffering and bearing it with us. The powerful recognition that the shadows are as much a part of our journey as the light, and that in Christ, the place God most promises to be is in those places of sorrow and suffering.  Truly, we are not only not alone, but God brings life out of the death of us.

The world is filled with fearful things. Kids do not miss this. They feel life’s pain and see it in the world around them.  That Jesus takes all suffering into himself, and into the heart of God, is a promise for all of us, no matter what age.  

My family has been coming to Good Friday service since my children were very young.  At LNPC the service is multi-sensory and moody. We read through the end of Christ's earthly life contrasting the seven last words of Jesus with the seven days of creation.  Many people in the congregation stand to read scripture, and our readers are all dressed in black. It feels different in the sanctuary than it does on Sundays, or on our cozy, warm, candlelit contemplative Saturdays. There is a somberness and solemnity to the evening, as we extinguish candles one by one and end in darkness. The service ends with a loud bang, and we all leave the sanctuary in silence. 

For my kids’ whole childhood they have attended Good Friday service, and since they were in car seats, we have driven all the way home from church in silence (beginning by hilariously reminding a toddler each time she'd forget - every 90 seconds or so...). We don’t speak until we set foot in the house.  A few years ago, I forgot this.  My kids met me silently at the church door and we walked to the car without speaking, and then I remembered, and felt grateful that they'd held the silence when I’d forgotten.  

 

We’ve talked this Lent about the “liturgies” that shape us (here, here, here, and here). The counter-forming practices of our faith tell us the real story, when so much around us tells us a different story.  God comes into all of it alongside it, to bear it with us and for us. God is not just there when things are going smoothly, or when we feel happy and upbeat.  God comes into the scary and sad parts of life – we are not alone.  This is the real story.

 

I want to encourage you not to avoid bringing kids to Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services, no matter their age. We absorb stories by experiencing them alongside others.  And Easter Sunday feels far more significant when witnessed and felt within the context of our whole salvation story.  

We are all church together, and we worship just as we are, however we are.  These worship services may open up interesting conversations in your family. At the very least, they offer a shared experience that speaks to us in music, darkness, scripture, ritual, and communal practice.

 

Blessings this Holy Week.

 

Kara

How it's supposed to go

Daily Devotion - April 9

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays) while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Maundy Thursday

The English word "Maundy" comes from the Latin 'mandatum,' which means "commandment." As recorded in John's gospel, on his last night before his betrayal and arrest, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and then gave them a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them (John 13:34). This is why services on this night generally include the washing of feet or other acts of physical care as an integral part of the celebration.

Today Jesus gathers with his disciples for the Passover meal in the upper room. It's tense. Lazarus is a week out of the tomb. The palm parade is four days past and the fallout is real - the authorities are after Jesus.  Gathered in that room, their nerves must have been positively vibrating with anticipation and dread.

This meal they've come to share remembers God delivering the people out of slavery.  But instead of claiming his power and pronouncing his intention to do the same, this One they expect to overturn the order and lead the people to freedom stands from the table and strips down to his skivvies, ties a towel around himself, gets on his hands and knees like a slave, and washes the filth off their feet.

"This is not how this is supposed to go!" Peter protests.  

But Jesus insists it is. 

Then he tells them to do the same for each other.

Right now the world feels turned upside down. We are all filled with anticipation and dread. Our nerves are frayed.  Perhaps we're feeling annoyed at our increased dependence on others, eager to get back to our independent, self-sufficient kind of life. We're connected but cut off; isolated and helpless, unsure what any of this will come to mean. We'd like to be delivered from this ASAP.

Every fiber of us may be saying, "This is not how it's supposed to go!"  

But Jesus insists it is.

And now we are having our feet washed in ways we can't have anticipated.  And we are also washing each other's feet.  Kind words.  Forwarded messages of inspiration.  Holding those in our own homes when the tears come. Gifts, letters and phone calls. Offers to help. Checking in. Cheering on. Grieving together, apart. Laughing together, apart.  All over the world and in our own neighborhoods and homes, we are tenderly lifting the parts of one another that are bruised and tired and caring for each other.

We are ministers; this is ministry.

This is how it's supposed to go.

We have all our powerful, compelling idea of how our freedom ought to look, and then we have reality in front of us.  And we have a God who comes not to fulfill our ideas, but to share our reality.  Right inside this thing. Right alongside us.  Not judging, critiquing and instructing us how we should be acting or thinking, but getting down and washing the dirt and ache off of our feet. 

And telling us to do likewise.

God brings a different freedom than we think we should have.  

We are not made free from each other, but free for each other.

We are ministers; this is ministry.

This is how it's supposed to go.

How are your feet being washed this week?

Whose feet are you washing?

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps, tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might pause, reflect, and pray in this way, and so join our hearts:

May I receive the blessings you gave me this day
through the hands and words and acts of others,
blessings like...

May I receive the blessings you gave me this day
in the moments you used me to bless others,
moments like...

Thank you for the freedom I discover in giving.
Thank you for the freedom I embrace when I receive.
Thank you that in all things, and no matter what, I
belong to you, God, and to all others.
Amen.

Jesus incognito, Jesus revealed

A Reflection for Maundy Thursday

"Maundy Thursday is an alternate name for Holy Thursday, the first of the three days of solemn remembrance of the events leading up to and immediately following the crucifixion of Jesus. The English word "Maundy" comes from the Latin mandatum, which means "commandment." As recorded in John's gospel, on his last night before his betrayal and arrest, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and then gave them a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them (John 13:34). This is why services on this night generally include the washing of feet or other acts of physical care as an integral part of the celebration.
While John's gospel does not record the institution of the Lord's Supper among the events of this night, the other gospels do. Christians therefore keep this night with celebrations both at the basin (footwashing) and at the Lord's Table (Holy Communion)." (from the United Methodist Church)

JESUS INCOGNITO, JESUS REVEALED

I was a child of the 1970s and 80s. I grew up with Mr. Rogers. I visited the neighborhood daily (sometimes twice a day). Mr. Rogers was a trusted friend - I now recognize, a mashup of caring teacher/uncle/pastor - whose gentle wisdom cushioned my days.

I remember Officer Clemmons. I remember this scene from reruns.
But encountering it again as an adult, it takes my breath away.
I am moved by the power of God's love in our everyday lives.
When we are with and for each other, we meet Jesus, who is God with and for us. Right here and now.

This feels like the right story for this Maundy Thursday, so I share it with you.



Today we begin the holiest time of the church year. "Holy" means "set apart." I invite you to come into these next few days with a sense of holy pause, awareness, noticing.
Let these days be set apart from the ordinary with a sense of attention to God's presence.  

The upside down, powerful-in-weakness, gentle and persistent love of Christ sees, acknowledges, and lifts up others. In whom do you see this love today? 
Who are you invited to see, touch, lift up, and so meet Christ?
Who is Jesus speaking through to you today?


Blessing You Cannot Turn Back
For Holy Thursday

As if you could
stop this blessing
from washing
over you.

As if you could
turn it back,
could return it
from your body
to the bowl,
from the bowl
to the pitcher,
from the pitcher
to the hand
that set this blessing
on its way.

As if you could
change the course
by which this blessing
flows.

As if you could
control how it
pours over you—
unbidden,
unsought,
unasked,
yet startling
in the way
it matches the need
you did not know
you had.

As if you could
become undrenched.
As if you could
resist gathering it up
in your two hands
and letting your body
follow the arc
this blessing makes.

—Jan Richardson, (The Painted Prayerbook)

For a longer version of the story, go here.