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Dear Centenary Family,
First, I’d like to thank all of you who came to our Let’s Get Acquainted event last Sunday. We had a great time of building relationships and learning more about one another. I’m especially grateful to Mary E. Vetrovec who provided the delicious food. We look forward to more opportunities to grow together in deeper relationships with God and each other.
I also want to remind you that this Sunday, we will participate in the Blessing of the Palms Service with our sister downtown churches. We will plan to gather in the social hall and leave here at 9:45 a.m. with our palm branches and walk together to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 8th and Grace Street. We will participate in a brief service outdoors (weather permitting) and then return to Centenary for Palm Sunday worship. Please remember that our service will officially commence at 10:45 a.m. as we allow people time to settle in after the processional. Come at 10:30 am if you’re not coming for the processional and hear some lovely music by Lee Covington.
Palm Sunday launches the journey of Holy Week. In worship, this Sunday, we will remember Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and hear how the mood changed throughout the week as we hear a dramatic reading of the story of Jesus’ trial and death led by our choir. My brief homily this Sunday is entitled You Can Learn a Lot in a Week. Holy Week reveals a lot about our common plight as human beings. We learn that we as human beings can be fickle, deceitful, and afraid. We can easily become complicit in injustice and evil and often find it very difficult to see the truth about God and ourselves. This week reveals to us our need for a Savior while also making plain that long-suffering, sacrificial love of God we see so clearly in Jesus Christ. Easter will mean more to us all if we can spend some time thinking and praying about why we need Easter to begin with. We will also celebrate The Lord’s Supper this week.
I hope you will join us in person or online for our services Thursday and Friday evening at 7:30 p.m. each night. On Thursday night, we remember Jesus’ last meal with his disciples and Jesus’ institution of the sacrament of Holy Communion. On Friday evening, we will have a Tenebrae Service or Service of Shadows as its sometimes called. This is a brief service, but very moving. We begin in light and conclude and darkness, leaving this service with the profound realization that Jesus is dead, buried in a tomb with all hope for his mission seemingly lost.
As we make this journey together, my prayer is that all of us will humbly recognize our need for God’s grace and joyfully receive that grace in some new and transforming way.
I’m grateful to count all of you as companions as we make this journey to the cross and beyond together.
Peace,
Matt
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