In the spirit of my series this week on preaching, here are six live recordings of recent sermons. The first one is from Job. The next several are from the gospel of Mark and the one at the end is on the road to Emmaus.
resurrection sunday
Easter Follow-Up: Why Holy Week Services Are Better Than Easter Pageants
StandardWell Holy Week is over and Easter has begun!
Although I find myself with a lot of energy today, I am completely unable to focus on even menial tasks. I went to my phone several times to call people in my church and every time forgot who I needed to call right as the contacts loaded (which takes .07 seconds).
I sat in front of my computer for an hour thinking about my sermon before I got to my very first sentence, which read, “I want you to close your eyes and think back to the last time. . .” Yes, I know that is not even a complete sentence.
But things have got better since then, so good in fact, that I am able to post this blog. Normally I would wax poetic but Holy Week is the time for poetry. The Monday after Easter is the time for as little work as possible, which means today I am giving you a fun list.
But this list has a point. You see, last week I led my congregation through the movements of Holy Week using the traditional Maundy Thursday, Tenebrae Friday, Easter Sunrise schedule.
As I was thinking, praying and planning these amazing times, Facebook pictures reminded me that other churches (considerably larger churches) don’t do the special services. They do pageants.
You probably know what I am talking about: live donkeys, live palms, live disciples, automated live thunder and live lightning, real life crosses and an ironically not “live” but paper mached tombstone, and a tall, bearded white guy pretending to be Jesus getting crucified. They usually charge money to see them, but don’t worry they discount the matinees.
Haha, I love live donkeys!
I am not against these at all. In fact, I acted in one when I was a kid. My dad was a palm seller and I was a kid that got driven out of the temple with a whip. Yes, I understand the irony now.
Still, I like the Holy Week services better than the pageants. So here is my list: Reasons Why Holy Week Services Are Better Than Easter Pageants!
1) The Holy Week Services Are Shorter
I like long worship services. I do. There is something to say for that. I even like long movies and long pageants. There is probably even something to say about acting out the same story six times in 4 days.
However, I love more that the Holy Week services are short and different from each other. The short, sweet and powerful moments of Maundy Thursday and Tenebrae Friday remind me that drawing people into the Easter story doesn’t have to be complex.
2) They Are Ancient
A painting of the first Maundy Thursday
This year I added something new to my traditional greeting. I reminded the congregation that what we were doing on Thursday and Friday night has been done for at least 1600 years. More than 400 generations have commemorated the last week of Jesus through these services. That is powerful! Pageants, on the other hand, are only 50 or so years old.
A polaroid of an “early” Easter pageant.
3) They Happen In Real Time
The pageants don’t take people through all of Holy Week in real time. They just do Good Friday and Easter over and over and over and over. The Holy Week services do Holy Week in real time. Jesus ate the Last Supper on Thursday, so we eat the Last Supper on Thursday. Jesus was crucified on Friday so we do Tenebrae on Friday. The women waited on Saturday so we wait on Saturday. I love the time between the services because it reminds me that the disciples didn’t just experience a 2-3 hour ordeal (with intermission to buy candy) but they had time in that week to process, to despair, to mourn, to be confused, to wonder and to be filled with hope.
Holy Saturday always hits me the hardest. I live in the tension of Tenebrae and Sunrise for a whole day, struggling with the things the disciples struggled with before the new day dawns. In an Easter pageant, all that would happen between Tenebrae and Resurrection is that I would buy more popcorn during intermission.
4) They Are Easy and Cheap
There are more people in this picture than go to my church! And the set probably cost double our annual budget!
Okay, the Holy Week services are not easy. I spent hours and hours planning them last week and my worship team was exhausted by the end of the week. With that said, most pageants take thousands of dollars and at least fifty people to pull off. They take months of planning and loads of prep work. Last week, I did Holy Week with 4 music leaders and 2 pastors. And we spent less than $50 dollars.
Plus you have to have a gigantic sanctuary or stadium to pull them off, which brings me to my next point. . .
5) Small Churches Can Do Holy Week Services
Man, live donkeys are so much fun! Look at all those body parts!
Let’s face it, pageants are new events that happened alongside the phenomena of the Mega Church. Small churches don’t have the people or the energy or the time or the money to pour into a pageant. But the Holy Week services are just as powerful (if not more so) and can help breathe esteem into your small, struggling church. Even though the pageants are fun (I mean, who doesn’t like watching a live donkey walk down your church’s center aisle? with its hock knees and hoofed feet and fetlock ankles?) you can draw people into the presence of the crucified Lord using only bread, grape juice and a few candles. This brings me to the next. . .
6) People Don’t Have to Pretend To Be Jesus
How Jesus Asked Us to Tell The Easter Story
When my church did an Easter pageant growing up, there was always this awkward thing that happened when you couldn’t find someone to play Jesus. For all of our faults, we really love Jesus and respect Jesus and don’t want to pretend to be Jesus. So it is really hard to find someone willing to fall on the, “I Want To Be Jesus For Easter” sword. In strong contrast, during the Holy Week services, Jesus is remembered in the bread and the cup, which is how Jesus asked us to remember him.
During Tenebrae we represent Jesus using candles instead of a live person. It is just less awkward. All it takes to draw people into the Easter story are some bread, some juice (or wine), some candles, some songs, a great worship planner and the faithful congregation.
And that seems to have something to do with what Easter is all about! The cross and resurrection mean we don’t have to bribe God with live donkeys. We just need to break some bread, drink some juice, read some Scripture and sing some songs.
Well now I am suddenly preaching! So let me go work on the sermon while I am still in the preaching mode!
May God Bless Your Post Easter Monday!
Resurrection Sunday Reflection: Somebody Like Jesus
StandardHe is Risen!
That is the part where you are supposed to say “He is risen indeed” but I can completely understand if you didn’t say it. After all, yelling random liturgies at your computer when you are sitting in your living room may not be the most sane way to celebrate your Easter.
But He is risen indeed and boy that fills me with all kinds of silliness and bouyancy and energy and hope.
I don’t know about you, but I longed for Easter this year. Lent was a particularly poignant time of fasting and reflection and prayer. It was also a time of transition and the heartbreaking sadness of loss along with scores of mundane details that threaten to overwhelm me. Needless to say, by Friday night I truly felt like I had died with Christ.
But this morning as I walked to church under a very large, gray cloud, holding coffee in one hand and my tablet in the other, I felt the death fade away and a burst of giddy energy overtake it, the giddy energy of Spring.
Now I know Spring officially began a couple weeks ago, but for me Spring begins today. For six weeks we have been mourning and fasting and longing for life. And today life poured out of the tombs and into our world. The sad songs fade away. The fasting ends. The joy abounds. The light shines forth.
As a dear pastor friend of mine once preached, “After Easter, life has no limit, love has no limit!”
It actually brought to mind a Keith Urban song, probably his best, called “Somebody Like You.” Of course it is a secular romance song but its lyrics, its melodies and its structure serenades us with the reality of Resurrection!
There’s a new wind blowin’ like I’ve never known.
I’m breathin’ deeper than I’ve ever done.
And it sure feels good, to finally feel the way I do.
I wanna love somebody,
Love somebody like you.
An’ I’m lettin’ go of all my lonely yesterdays.
I’ve forgiven myself for the mistakes I’ve made.
Now there’s just one thing, the only thing I wanna do,
I wanna love somebody,
Love somebody like you.
Yeah, I wanna feel the sunshine,
Shinin’ down on me and you.
When you put your arms around me,
You let me know there’s nothing in this world I can’t do.
I used to run in circles goin’ no-where fast.
I’d take, uh, one step forward end up two steps back.
Couldn’t walk a straight line even if I wanted to,
I wanna love somebody,
Love somebody like you.
Holy Saturday Reflection: Watching and Waiting
StandardIt is partly cloudy and bit cold outside, with sporadic sunshine dancing across the street on which I live.
This morning my son woke me up around 7am. His sister awoke about an hour later. I made my family pancakes, fixed a flat tire, cleaned up fallen branches and pushed my children on their swings in the backyard. My wife is currently at a book study that would have happened on any other Saturday.
This could be any other Saturday in April, and for many outside Christianity, and regrettably many Christians, this is.
Yet on this Saturday we wait and we watch. After all, Holy Saturday is unique in the list of Holy days. The gospel narratives barely include it. Mark, the lectionary gospel for this year, gives us no narrative account of the Saturday between the crucifixion and the resurrection. It simply skips over it with the words in 16:1, “When the Sabbath was over.”
We have no idea where the disciples were on Saturday or what they did. We know that the women waited, but there is no reason to believe it was a passive waiting. They probably went about the business of a regular Sabbath, while trying to reconcile their memories of Jesus with his bitter end. If they were around today, they would probably be playing with my children in my backyard, or at the book study with my wife. They might be smiling and laughing but their smiles would quickly turn to grief as the sunshine outside my window quickly turns back to clouds.
So today we are left alongside these women. We do not fully understand the cross, even after 2,000 years and we do not fully grasp why God had to die. We are struggling to stay happy after the terrible revelation that God lived among us and we killed God.
Yet as we wait, we hope for Sunday morning. We may not know exactly what we are hoping for. For many of us, it will just be the paltry end to our Lenten fast. Others of us look forward to signing all five verses of “In Christ Alone” again. . .and again. Others of us look forward to the Easter ham.
But whatever we hope for this morning, while we wait with the women, we gather our burial spices together and prepare to go honor our fallen Messiah, wondering who might pull back the stone for us. . .
Go-Before Grace 