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Why do we have three extra services during Holy Week?

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easter-10-0Every year during Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter (falling on March 24-31 this year), we hold three unique worship services. These services are known as the Three Days, or the Triduum. “The Three Days encompass the time from Maundy Thursday evening through the evening of Easter Day. In particular, the services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter unfold in a single movement, as the church each year makes the passage with Christ through death into life.” (Excerpt from Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Augsburg Fortress, 2006, p. 247)
“If we are to rethink what we do in the present and plan for the future, it is useful to begin by knowing the past. What were the liturgies of Lent and the Three Days like in the beginning, and how did they come to have the forms familiar to many of us today? 
Christian historians tell us that, in the decades after the life of Jesus, Christians met each week for a meal that celebrated the presence of the risen Christ. Then we hear the apostle Paul, writing in the 50s, scolding the Corinthians because their celebrative gatherings seem to have forgotten both the death of Christ and the situation of the poor. By the second century, in addition to this weekly celebration of Christ’s resurrection, many Christians had designed also an annual festival, at which they adapted the Jewish Passover to commemorate both the death and resurrection of Christ. At this event, the stories of creation and the exodus were read along with the New Testament accounts of Jesus as ways to proclaim new life in Christ. In the fourth century, it was agreed to keep this annual Christian Passover always on a Sunday. 
By the fifth and sixth centuries, a pattern had become common throughout the Christian communities: the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ was observed over a three-day service. Part 1, Maundy Thursday, was kept to recall Christ’s meal with his disciples; part 2, Good Friday, was a simple day to pray 
and to honor the crucified Christ; and part 3, the Vigil of Easter, was the climax of the event, with springtime bonfire, many biblical readings, multiple baptisms, and the first eucharist, of Easter. The Vigil of Easter was the central liturgy of the year and the primary occasion for all baptisms, since being 
Christian was about embodying the death and resurrection of Christ.” (Excerpt from Worship Guidebook for Lent and Three Days, Augsburg Fortress, 2009, p. 11-12)
Let me encourage you to prioritize the Three Days this year. Make an effort to attend all of the services during Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and Easter Sunday. It may seem like more church than you can handle! I can certainly appreciate that feeling. The Three Days, however, are the principle celebration of the Christian church. These services are the best way to connect your personal spiritual journey to the corporate experience of passing with Christ through death into life.

Ashes to Ashes

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palms for ash wednesday

“Images from the Ash Wednesday liturgy are spoken over bodies not only in church buildings at the beginning of Lent but also outdoors in all seasons of the year: “We commit this body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” (ELW, p. 284). In the funeral liturgy, such words are spoken after the body is laid in the grave and as earth is cast onto the coffin, or as ashes are placed in the earth or into a columbarium. Each year, the Ash Wednesday liturgy offers every member of the church words and a gesture that seem to have arrived, ahead of time, from our own funeral liturgy. Earth is placed on our bodies, scriptural words about the inevitable decomposition of our bodies are spoken over us: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Among the many things that Ash Wednesday accomplishes is a small-scale, ritualized, near-death experience.” (Excerpt from Worship Guidebook for Lent and Three Days, Augsburg Fortress, 2009, p. 18)

In seminary I had a systematic theology professor who often welcomed us to class with these words: “Greetings, frail creatures of dust!” Now, that may seem like an odd way to welcome people, but it has a theological underscoring that is significant. In the end, after all is said and done, we go back to being what we were all along – dust.

Ash Wednesday (February 13) is the first day of Lent in our liturgical calendar. It occurs 46 days before Easter. The precise date of Ash Wednesday is always moveable, falling on a different date each year because it is dependent on the date of Easter. Why 46 days? According to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of this 40-day liturgical period of prayer and fasting. Why are there an extra six days? Because there are six Sundays during the season of Lent, and every Sunday is the day of resurrection (a little Easter). On Sundays the fast of Lent is broken in celebration of the resurrection.

Ash Wednesday gets its name from the practice of placing ashes on the forehead as a sign of mourning and repentance to God. The ashes used are typically created from the burnt palms of the previous year’s Palm Sunday services.

Historically, Ash Wednesday and the following season of Lent was the time of final preparations for baptism. Catechumens, people desiring to join the church and receiving instruction about the Christian faith, experienced an intense time of prayer, fasting, exorcisms, and teaching. Finally, at dawn on Easter Sunday, after an all night Vigil, the catechumens were baptized and welcomed into the body of Christ by participating in the Eucharist for the first time. Ash Wednesday was the beginning of a season of life, death, and renewal.

But why do we have to be so morbid about it? Because no matter how much wealth, no matter how many material possessions, no matter how much plastic surgery, no matter how much exercise and fitness, no matter how much success, no matter how much fame and notoriety, in the end, we go back to being what we were all along – dust.