Holy Week Celebrated at Tobermory United
Submitted by Rev. Sheryl Spencer
This week, I stopped at a fabric store in Owen Sound and bought fabric. I bought white fabric and red fabric and gold fabric. I didn’t buy black fabric because we already had some. What did I need all this fabric for? Well, it’s Holy Week, which, for church people, is the most sacred time of the year. We follow Jesus through the last week of his life, from his triumphal entry into Jerusalem (we decorate in red), to the last supper with his friends (red again), to his betrayal and crucifixion (black) to his miraculous resurrection (white and gold). It is a week of journeying through a lot of emotions (and decorating and re-decorating the sanctuary).
It wasn’t until I was in divinity school that I truly started paying attention to the full breadth and depth of Holy Week. Good Friday was a day to travel to family or decorate Easter eggs with the kids, but now I’m a convert to full-immersion Holy Week. Why? Because I’ve come to believe that Easter is more meaningful when one has passed through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Easter means more when the pathos, tenderness and pain of those other days has been experienced. And the other thing? It’s my theory that when this journey is taken every year – the whole thing – a recognizable pattern is revealed, an assuredness that when heartbreak, grief and mourning show up in our own lives, that new life, a new morning, even joy, as incredulous as it may seem, is not far off.
The peninsula is blessed with many partnerships among communities and people of faith that will allow for a rich and meaningful experience of Holy Week. The Community Easter Cantata Choir will be offering three performances of their Good Friday Cantata, including one at Tobermory United. There will be a Maundy Thursday service at Tobermory United, intimate and quiet, as Jesus’ last supper with his friends is remembered, and then, Easter Sunday, a service filled with beautiful music as we celebrate the joy of resurrection and the long-awaited arrival of Spring.
The doors are open. All are welcome.
Rev. Sheryl Spencer is the minister at Tobermory United Church.
