The tomb is empty! Christ is risen! Like Mary Magdalene and the other women who went to the tomb we experience the risen Lord and our sadness and weeping end. “Now no more can death appall, now no more the grave enthrall; You have opened paradise, and your saints in you shall rise. Alleluia!” At The Lamb’s High Feast We Sing (1982 Hymnal verse3)
The tomb is empty! Christ is risen! Like Mary Magdalene and the other women who went to the tomb we experience the risen Lord and our sadness and weeping end. “Now no more can death appall, now no more the grave enthrall; You have opened paradise, and your saints in you shall rise. Alleluia!” At The Lamb’s High Feast We Sing (1982 Hymnal verse3)
We mark the day of Christ’s suffering, crucifixion, and death. In John’s passion account, Jesus reveals the power and glory of God, even as he is put on trial and sentenced to death. Standing with the disciples at the foot of the cross, we pray for the whole world in the ancient bidding prayer, as Christ’s death offers life to all. We gather in solemn devotion, but always with the promise that the tree around which we assemble is indeed a tree of life. We depart silently, and we anticipate the culmination of the Three Days on Easter morning.
We remember Jesus celebrating the Lord’s Supper with his disciples, his washing their feet as an example to us of serving one another, and his commandment to them to “Love one another as I have loved you.” The service includes foot washing and handwashing, the “stripping of the altar area” in remembrance of the way Jesus was stripped and humiliated by those who put him to death, washing the altar and taking the reserved Sacrament to the Altar of Repose where we place them in reserve for the Good Friday Service. We depart in silence.