Lessons in the Liturgy: Part 1–It Helps Get to the Great Sunday

This coming Sunday (March 2), at my parish in South Dakota we will mark the Transfiguration of Our Lord. We will climb the mountain and see a glimpse of Jesus as he is, as he pulls back the veil of his humiliation and displays His glory: whiter than white, the Father’s beloved, to whom we listen!

Transfiguration shows us Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah about his exodus (note the Greek of Luke 9:31) and the Spirit reminds us that Jesus wasn’t, like Peyton Manning, calling plays on the fly when He saw what the defense (the devil, the world, our sinful flesh) dialed up. He knew, from all eternity what he would do, where he was going, and how it would end: put to death because of our sins, raised to life because of our justification.

At the end of this service, we will sing a hymn called “Alleluia, Song of Triumph,” during which we will take down our “Alleluia” banner and remove it from the sanctuary. For, as we sing, “Alleluia cannot always be our song while here below | Alleluia our transgressions make us for a while forgo.”

And then it begins. Lent. We will mark the beginning of this solemn season with Ash Wednesday (March 5). We will do more talking than singing. We will speak responsively a series of long prayers and litanies and psalms. We will use the words for the ancient rite of imposing ashes (even without actually imposing ashes): “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return!” We will lower ourselves into the dust like Job and beg, “Lord, have mercy!”

We will march through forty days of Lent until we get to Palm Sunday. Our choirs and people will gather in the narthex with their palms. We will proclaim the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem according to Matthew and then, waving our palm branches, enter the sanctuary singing, “All glory, laud, and honor to you, Redeemer King!” But then, no sooner do we sit down than we hear the horrible counter-point to the day’s “Hosanna”: “Crucify him!”

On Maundy Thursday, our people will gather, and not only will they confess their sins to the Lord and hear his word of forgiveness from their pastor, but they will also speak reconciliation to one another, loving each other, as Christ commanded. We will receive the precious body and blood of Christ for our forgiveness before things take a turn. At the end of the evening our Altar Guild will strip the altar:  furniture, communion ware, paraments, books, offering plates, everything. Gone. They will empty the chancel as the choir sings the off-putting words of Psalm 88: “You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend.” And we leave in silence without a blessing.

Now the holy three days (Triduum, in Latin) begins. It will continue on Good Friday. Some will have noon services or three-hour (Tre Ore) services. We, who left in silence on Maundy Thursday, will return in silence that evening for a service of darkness (Tenebrae). Almost no music adorns this service. None to enter. None to leave. Very little in between. The words of Jeremiah in Lamentations assault us: “My sins have been bound into a yoke; by his hands they were woven together. They have come upon my neck and the Lord has sapped my strength. He has handed me over to those I cannot withstand.” We mourn the sad truth: “Oh sorrow dread, God’s Son is dead!” Preaching publicly puts before our eyes that sacred head, now wounded. The darkness deepens and we pray that the Lord abide with us. Until that terrible crash, the strepitus, sounds out in the total darkness. Christ is dead. The punishment of God has been carried out.

But not on us. So one candle is lit. A voice intones:

“Lord, let at last Your angels come; | To Abram’s bosom bear me home | That I may die unfearing. | And in its narrow chamber keep | My body safe in peaceful sleep | Until Your reappearing. | And then from death awaken me | That my own eyes with joy may see, | O Son of God, Your glorious face, | My Savior and my Fount of grace. | Lord Jesus Christ, | My prayer attend, my prayer attend, | And I will praise You without end.”

And we leave. Again in silence. But in hope:  In hoc signo vinces, “In this sign you shall conquer!”

A day of rest will follow, Holy Saturday. A day to prepare. To keep watch. To wait.

Finally it will come. The sun rises. Our choir will chant the ancient Exsultet: “This is the night when all who believe in Christ are delivered from bondage to sin and are restored to life and immortality.” Then Christians offer each other the Easter greeting, “Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” “Alleluia!”

Yes, now “Alleluia” returns. That banner carried out on Transfiguration will be brought back into the sanctuary and unfurled just as our lips and tongues unfurl the “Alleluias” hidden for the past forty days. For, in the words of Luther’s triumphant Easter hymn, “Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands, for our offenses given!” But now, “Here the true paschal lamb we see!” “The Word of grace has purged away the old and evil leaven!” “He is our meat and drink indeed!”

Everything has built up to this moment. To this Sunday. The Great Sunday. The day of resurrection. The day that makes all other Sundays “the Lord’s day” (Revelation 1:10).

From this Great Sunday flows the whole Christian Church year. The earliest Christians originally only observed this one feast:  Easter (also called Pascha, the Greek word for “suffering” or Passover). From Easter came Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday (Holy Week). From there came Lent. Epiphany and Christmas emerged in the third and fourth centuries. From them came Advent. Note the cycle: Preparation (Advent, Lent), Fulfillment (Christmas, Easter), Unfolding (Epiphany, Pentecost).

In other words, in the liturgy and the liturgical calendar with its assigned festivals, days, observances, and rituals, the Christian Church has a calendar to mark out the entire year, taking us through the law and gospel cycle we sinner-saints need:

• prepared by God (Advent, Lent) as he calls us to repentance for our sins through the words, songs, hymns, lessons, and preaching, and Sacrament;
• shown God’s fulfillment (Christmas and Easter) of our needs as he sends Christ into this world, into and out of death, bringing us our bread of life through the words, songs, hymns, lessons, preaching, and Sacrament;
• continually growing in our understanding of it all as God unfolds the mystery of his grace and Christ (Epiphany and Pentecost), again, to sound the refrain, through the words, songs, hymns, lessons, preaching, and Sacrament.

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All of this with Christ at the center, leading us to the Great Sunday of Easter even on the little Easters of our weekly observance, where the Holy Spirit “teaches and preaches to us the Word…works and promotes sanctification, causing this congregation daily to grow and to become strong in the faith and its fruit” because this whole year “is ordered toward this goal: we shall daily receive in the Church nothing but the forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live here” (The Large Catechism).