A look back at Holy Week and Easter

Well here I am with Easter a few weekends in the past. A very
different and special Easter it was too! For those who don’t know I
have recently made the move back to the Methodist Church – My
birth church. I seem to remember it as the Wesleyan Methodist!

Holy week started for me on the Thursday with a Tenabrae Service
with communion and then 24 readings by candlelight and after every
second reading a candle was extinguished until after the last reading
the last candle was extinguished. The service ended when a single
candle was lit to represent the Light of Christ that never goes out.
Very special and moving.

Good Friday morning followed with an 8:30am service as we
remembered Jesus being lead before Pilate, being scourged and handed
back to His Jewish brethren and lead away to be crucified. After the
service I joined the mostly Anglican group that have been doing a
“Way of the Cross” walk up Van Riebeeck Ave – the
“Main” street in Edenvale. This was my 11^th
year to take part and I had been overjoyed to have been called on my
cell phone and asked to read again. We start at the bottom of the
Edenvale hill and walk up the hill carry a cross. We stop at each
intersection for a reading from the Bible, a short prayer and then a
Christian song or hymn. Anyone is allowed to step forward and carry
the cross to the next intersection. It is always a very public
display of who we are as Christians and quite often are joined on the
way up the hill. Once we reach the top and very publicly in the front
of the Eden Mall the cross is erected after having 3 nails hammered
into it to represent those used to nail Jesus to the cross. Finally
the notice like Pilate wrote is nailed to the cross and a crown of
thorns hung around it as well.

Saturday was just spent at home with many thoughts of our Jewish
brothers and sisters celebrating Pesach. What a different meaning
Pesach must have for our Messianic Jewish brothers and sisters! It
really is something to looking into in the future! Off to bed early

as we had an extra early start. PrimMeth held a dawn service up on the Primrose ridge.
What a way to welcome the risen Lord! Communion, songs of praise and
worship and prayer as we greeted the resurrection day! But maybe we do things
amiss? By Hebrew reckoning does not the next day start straight after
sunset? So was it more correct to say that Mary found the empty tomb
shortly after sunset on the Saturday evening which was already
Sunday? Just a thought to ponder! Back home again and then I walked
to the 8:30am service as my family had used the car to go to their
dawn and early services. Easter is such a personal time is it not as
we each reflect once again in a deep way just what Jesus did for me –
not another soul – just me by dying on that Cross so that my
sins maybe washed away with His Perfect Blood. I have heard the words
said often that He nailed my sins to the Cross but it’s just so much
more than that. He died for me, He took my place on the Cross, not
your place no anyone else’s place just mine. I did nothing to deserve
it, I can do nothing to earn it. All I can do is humbly accept what
He has done for me and then share that Good News with everyone I
meet! When I made the last step to move from the “Jesus died
for us” or “Jesus died for all” or His inclusive
death and made it something very personal – “Jesus died
for Me” Easter took on that whole new meaning!