Articles - Miscellaneous

"Were you there when they crucified my Lord ……..?

I have been reflecting on the Holy Week and Easter Services I was able to experience this year and found hope in the opening of the daffodil I was given at the 10.00am service on Good Friday. A bulb tight closed opened on Easter Day into a many petalled yellow daffodil, not just an ordinary one, something you couldn't tell from the outside on Friday.

The Stone was Rolled Away

A bit like each one of us, waiting for Jesus to open us up to our full potential and, like the hymn I joined in to sing on Maundy Thursday in the Cathedral, we need Jesus to "Come, change our love from a spark to a flame".

I had moved in body and, I feel, in spirit through the telling of the Easter story from Palm Sunday; the quiet communion service on Monday; the physical trip to Ripon for the Eucharist for the Blessing of Oils and the Renewal of Commitment to Ministries; the united Eucharist at Lidgett Park and Vigil following; then on to Good Friday and the daffodil. The service began with the young people enacting the last supper before we moved into the west garden for the Garden of Gesthemene and back into church at the front of the nave for the trial with the cruxifixion in the chancel, moving outside to the north garden to the tomb. Here we received the daffodil and were invited to come back on Easter Day. For me, though, the Liturgy of Good Friday, with its simple austerity "serves to focus attention on the stark fact of the death of Jesus on the cross." (From the note to the service). The singing of the reproaches "The Proclamation of the Cross" is very moving before the distribution of the bread and wine from the reserved sacrament when we join in with Christ's suffering for us. Then we leave in silence. The evening "Words and Music for Good Friday" brought the suffering of Christ into the context of the modern world and the words of the spiritual "Were you there when they crucified my Lord", stayed in my mind through the preparation of the church for Easter Day and the Easter Eve climax of the Service of Light, renewal of Baptismal vows, and the celebration of the first Eucharist of Easter.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

The Easter Cross

I would like to thank all who have been involved in any way with the preparation and presentation of the services through Lent, Holy Week and Easter, particularly for the music and the readings. It has for me been a journey of the body, soul and the mind. If you can, I would urge you next year to join in that journey yourself.

Anne Smith

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay