Well, you missed it. If you weren’t at Aldersgate UMC last night for our Good Friday service you missed what was probably one of the most theologically profound acts of worship in which I have ever participated. And it was an accident. Or was it? Certainly not of my design or intention. It was what I had planned when I put the service together some weeks ago. Yet it happened. For those who had eyes to see.
Let me explain. A few years ago I found a Good Friday service based on the Stations of the Cross. It was part dramatic reading, written from the perspective of the Centurion who oversaw Jesus journey to the cross and death on that cross and burial in the garden tomb. With a certain amount of dramatic licence, the Centurion help us reflect on the impact of this death on all of us. He struggled with this job, because it was different this time, he discovers, though he isn’t quite sure why.
The reflections from the Centurion are wrapped up with a statement on each particular Station of the Cross, and with a concluding prayer, and the Stations are interspersed with the congregation singing various verses from the passion hymns, It is very well written, taking us deep into the emotion and the meaning of the Good Friday event.
I used it about three years ago with a more traditional, male voice reading the Centurion role consistently. But this time I thought I would do something different. I wanted different voices reading that part, as though the Centurion was an Everyman, or even Every-person as I had female voices reading those lines at times. And then I was struck with a novel idea for casting. I asked my associate pastor Chris if he thought his wife Joy would join La Donna and I as the four readers of this script. Joy not only agreed, but also wanted to play the flute for the hymns and as a solo anthem piece in the middle. It all seemed to be set and ready for a powerful experience for all involved.
What I didn’t count on was Charlotte. Charlotte is Chris and Joy’s youngest daughter, a preschooler who decided that Good Friday evening that only mom would do. Though there were church members aplenty assigned to the task of watching Charlotte while the service was going on and her mom was so fully participating, she would have none of it. Even her dad was no consolation for the poor girl, who cried her eyes out (not to mention exercised her lungs) in Chris’ office when Joy went to practice before the service. Though those assigned child minders tried valiantly, we could all see it just wasn’t going to work. So at the last minute, as the prelude was playing, a change was made to the program and Charlotte joined us in the chancel.
When Joy played her flute, Charlotte would sit on the floor around her feet, or on a seat her mother had just vacated, partially hidden by the grand piano, and all was well. But when Joy would step up to the lectern to take her turn at reading from the wonderful script dramatically presenting to us the impressions of the Stations of the Cross, Charlotte would wander. And by wander I don’t mean to imply that she would walk demurely with her mother from her seat behind to the piano to the lectern in the front of the chancel where she would wait patiently until Joy was done reading before walking calmly back to her seat. No. If you think that is what she did throughout the service, then you don’t know Charlotte. Charlotte took full opportunity of the freedom of that space to explore each corner, keeping her mother in sight she would stroll to the center of the open chancel and then back toward Joy. She discovered that she could wander outside of the chancel, walking on the kneeling step and holding onto the communion rails like an office worker getting some air on a high ledge downtown. Once she discovered the unique acoustics of the space and stomped her foot on the stone tile just to hear the echo. Only once. She wove around the chancel furniture, tracing a labyrinthine path that only she knew, circling the Christ candle on its tall brass pole and back to the lectern where her mother stood. It was a sight to behold.
The dramatist in me was squirming, I must confess. The carefully constructed experience was at risk here, the heaviness of the passion of the Christ, the depth of the Stations were being swallowed up by this cherub with a cloud of blond curls dancing around the chancel without a care in the world, except that mom was in sight. For the first time I had a little sympathy for the disciples that day when they told the parents to keep their kids away from Jesus because we were doing serious stuff. Only to be made to be the bad guys when Jesus said “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them.”
“For to such as these belongs the Kingdom.” It was the theologian in me that came to the rescue. As I watched the little sprite dancing in the face of the darkness of Good Friday, I suddenly recognized her. It was hope. It was that little ribbon of sustenance that was how they made it through to Easter morning, fluttering here and there, outside and inside, tracing circles around the flame of Presence, even - and pay attention here - even when it was put out.
Holy Saturday has always puzzled me. How did those women have the wherewithal to prepare the spices? How did the broken and despairing disciples manage to not run screaming into the hillside, afraid for their own souls as well as their bodies now that the hammer had begun to fall? How did they follow him to the cross, even at a distance, and hover outside a tomb no matter how lovely the garden surrounding it? How did they endure the darkness of that day?
Because of Charlotte. Well, maybe not Charlotte in the flesh, but the hope and the joy that she wove in and through the sadness and the pain. Maybe they couldn’t dance in their own darkness, but hope was there, hidden, almost smothered, but tenacious, determined, clinging, unwilling to leave us to wallow in our despair.
What I heard that Good Friday night in the wanderings of little Charlotte is that no matter how much we think it is, the story - God’s story and our story - never ends in darkness. The sun does rise again.
Luke 24:1-12 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Without a word, our angel Charlotte proclaimed that death was not the final word, and that if we persisted to live in the darkness, then we were simply in the wrong place. He is not here, he is Risen. Alleluia.
Shalom,
Derek
Let me explain. A few years ago I found a Good Friday service based on the Stations of the Cross. It was part dramatic reading, written from the perspective of the Centurion who oversaw Jesus journey to the cross and death on that cross and burial in the garden tomb. With a certain amount of dramatic licence, the Centurion help us reflect on the impact of this death on all of us. He struggled with this job, because it was different this time, he discovers, though he isn’t quite sure why.
The reflections from the Centurion are wrapped up with a statement on each particular Station of the Cross, and with a concluding prayer, and the Stations are interspersed with the congregation singing various verses from the passion hymns, It is very well written, taking us deep into the emotion and the meaning of the Good Friday event.
I used it about three years ago with a more traditional, male voice reading the Centurion role consistently. But this time I thought I would do something different. I wanted different voices reading that part, as though the Centurion was an Everyman, or even Every-person as I had female voices reading those lines at times. And then I was struck with a novel idea for casting. I asked my associate pastor Chris if he thought his wife Joy would join La Donna and I as the four readers of this script. Joy not only agreed, but also wanted to play the flute for the hymns and as a solo anthem piece in the middle. It all seemed to be set and ready for a powerful experience for all involved.
What I didn’t count on was Charlotte. Charlotte is Chris and Joy’s youngest daughter, a preschooler who decided that Good Friday evening that only mom would do. Though there were church members aplenty assigned to the task of watching Charlotte while the service was going on and her mom was so fully participating, she would have none of it. Even her dad was no consolation for the poor girl, who cried her eyes out (not to mention exercised her lungs) in Chris’ office when Joy went to practice before the service. Though those assigned child minders tried valiantly, we could all see it just wasn’t going to work. So at the last minute, as the prelude was playing, a change was made to the program and Charlotte joined us in the chancel.
When Joy played her flute, Charlotte would sit on the floor around her feet, or on a seat her mother had just vacated, partially hidden by the grand piano, and all was well. But when Joy would step up to the lectern to take her turn at reading from the wonderful script dramatically presenting to us the impressions of the Stations of the Cross, Charlotte would wander. And by wander I don’t mean to imply that she would walk demurely with her mother from her seat behind to the piano to the lectern in the front of the chancel where she would wait patiently until Joy was done reading before walking calmly back to her seat. No. If you think that is what she did throughout the service, then you don’t know Charlotte. Charlotte took full opportunity of the freedom of that space to explore each corner, keeping her mother in sight she would stroll to the center of the open chancel and then back toward Joy. She discovered that she could wander outside of the chancel, walking on the kneeling step and holding onto the communion rails like an office worker getting some air on a high ledge downtown. Once she discovered the unique acoustics of the space and stomped her foot on the stone tile just to hear the echo. Only once. She wove around the chancel furniture, tracing a labyrinthine path that only she knew, circling the Christ candle on its tall brass pole and back to the lectern where her mother stood. It was a sight to behold.
The dramatist in me was squirming, I must confess. The carefully constructed experience was at risk here, the heaviness of the passion of the Christ, the depth of the Stations were being swallowed up by this cherub with a cloud of blond curls dancing around the chancel without a care in the world, except that mom was in sight. For the first time I had a little sympathy for the disciples that day when they told the parents to keep their kids away from Jesus because we were doing serious stuff. Only to be made to be the bad guys when Jesus said “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them.”
“For to such as these belongs the Kingdom.” It was the theologian in me that came to the rescue. As I watched the little sprite dancing in the face of the darkness of Good Friday, I suddenly recognized her. It was hope. It was that little ribbon of sustenance that was how they made it through to Easter morning, fluttering here and there, outside and inside, tracing circles around the flame of Presence, even - and pay attention here - even when it was put out.
Holy Saturday has always puzzled me. How did those women have the wherewithal to prepare the spices? How did the broken and despairing disciples manage to not run screaming into the hillside, afraid for their own souls as well as their bodies now that the hammer had begun to fall? How did they follow him to the cross, even at a distance, and hover outside a tomb no matter how lovely the garden surrounding it? How did they endure the darkness of that day?
Because of Charlotte. Well, maybe not Charlotte in the flesh, but the hope and the joy that she wove in and through the sadness and the pain. Maybe they couldn’t dance in their own darkness, but hope was there, hidden, almost smothered, but tenacious, determined, clinging, unwilling to leave us to wallow in our despair.
What I heard that Good Friday night in the wanderings of little Charlotte is that no matter how much we think it is, the story - God’s story and our story - never ends in darkness. The sun does rise again.
Luke 24:1-12 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Without a word, our angel Charlotte proclaimed that death was not the final word, and that if we persisted to live in the darkness, then we were simply in the wrong place. He is not here, he is Risen. Alleluia.
Shalom,
Derek
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