I have always loved the theater.  Invariably, I am drawn into the dialogue and action of a play, and while I am only a spectator, I often feel as if I am part of the drama.  There is power in theater to communicate and to help us see and think and feel and learn in ways that we would not otherwise. Good theater often leads us to experience the truth of our humanity.  

Sometimes critics of theater denigrate it by claiming that it’s only make believe.  They claim that because theater is fictitious, it is therefore not real, not true.  The experience of me and so many other theater lovers is, however, that make believe often enables us to enter into what is really real and truly true. It allows us to experience beauty and love and grace and truth in ways otherwise inaccessible to us.

Good worship is like good theater.  It invites us and provides the space for us to enter in and actually participate in God’s love story.  Christian women and men have, over the centuries, composed the great liturgies of the Church to aid us in receiving the truth of God’s love.  In listening to the scripture readings and singing the hymns and saying the prayers and receiving the sacraments, we are, in essence, actors in God’s great theater.  Well crafted worship, like a good play, helps us in the make believe work of faith.

We call this coming week Holy Week.  Of course, every week is holy in that every week God reaches out to us and offers us innumerable opportunities to be reconciled and to receive and give abundant life.  Holy Week, however, is special in that it is that time of the year in which we intentionally recount the last week of Jesus’ life. This Sunday, in our Palm Sunday worship, we celebrate the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem that marks the beginning of his journey to the cross.  On Wednesday evening at 5:30 pm, Stations of the Cross gives us an overview of the entire week.  Brief readings and prayers are offered at 14 stations.  On Thursday evening at 7:00 pm, our Maundy Thursday service helps us to experience the last supper of Jesus with his disciples, to participate in the act of washing one another’s feet as an expression of humility and service, and to prepare for Jesus’ crucifixion. Following our Maundy Thursday liturgy, members of the parish will be taking turns in the Chapel, praying with Jesus.  These Prayers in the Garden commemorate Jesus’ time spent in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane in which he exhorts his disciples to stay awake with him.  On Good Friday at 12:00 noon and then again at 7:00 pm, we will hear and experience the story of Jesus’ crucifixion.  Prayers at the Third Hour will be offered via Google Meet at 3:00 pm on Good Friday afternoon.  This is the occasion at which we take pause in our day to remember the death of Jesus. On Saturday morning at 8:00 am, we will offer Prayers at the Tomb, again via Google Meet, as we come into solidarity with all the saints both living and deceased who await the Resurrection.  On Saturday evening at 8:00 pm, we will celebrate the Great Vigil, the climax of the entire church year, in which we remember God’s story of life and salvation from the beginning of time through the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, to our own day and age.  And then finally, on Easter morning at 8:00 am and 10:30 am, we will celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection and the abiding truth that even death has no power over God who desires and grants abundant life.

Our Holy Week liturgies are commemorations of events that actually happened, but they are also much more than that.  In these liturgies, God actually invites us to participate in the great drama of salvation.  It is my fervent hope that you will join your parish family, take your part in God’s theater, and participate in some of these opportunities to experience the story of God’s profound love.  May our worship give glory to God and may they become occasions of make believe for all those who yearn for truth.

~Father Art