We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

Commentary

Good Friday Service 2024

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This service continues our worship through the Triduum, the last three days of Holy Week. Friday was the day of the execution of Jesus . Good Friday is “good” because the death of Christ, as terrible as it was, led to the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, which brought new life to those who believe.

The Good Friday service is under the section in the Prayer Book “Proper Liturgies for Special Days” which contain key services in Lent – Ash Wednesday,  Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, the Great Vigil.  Good Friday is good because the death of Christ, as terrible as it was, led to the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, which brought new life to those who believe. 

The service has 6 parts:
1. An entrance in silence,  
2. Readings which include Isaiah, the ever present Psalm 22 and the John 18:1-19:42 Passion reading,
3. the Solemn Collects,
4. The Entrance of the Cross, the Veneration of the Cross,
5. Musical Meditations and
6. Conclusion. 

The first reading is from Isaiah, the ever present Psalm 22, Hebrews, and John Passion Gospel reading, John 18:1-19:42.

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Maundy Thursday, 2024

Maundy Thursday marks the beginning of the Triduum, the last three days of Holy Week, in which our worship flows in one continuous liturgy, beginning with the Maundy Thursday service. “Time is suspended as we ponder and celebrate the great mysteries of our redemption.” The word “Maundy” is derived from Middle English, Old French and from the Latin word mandatum, meaning “commandment,” the first word of the phrase “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” (“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another, as I have loved you”), the statement we hear from Jesus to his disciples in tonight’s gospel reading.

The service is known for:
1. The Last Supper and the institution of communion
2. Washing of feet.
3. Stripping of the altar in preparation of Good Friday.

Bulletin is here

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Tenebrae, 2024

Tenebrae is the opening of the Holy Week services for the church.

Links:
1. The bulletin is here.
2. The description of this day in Holy Week with the Bible readings and commentaries is here. 
3. The background of the service is here.  
4. Digging into Tenebrae
5. A photo gallery of the day from 2019 can be found here.
6. A photo gallery from 2024 can be found here.
7. The video stream of the service in 2024 is here

This was our introduction to the service in 2019:

The service requires both a good acolyte and reader. There are 15 candles to extinguish and creating a sense of drama as the service progress. The service is 100% scripture so the reader has a challenge.

Selective extinguishing the candles in 2024:

Unlike the other Easter services, Tenebrae doesn’t relate to a specific Holy Week event as Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.

“Tenebrae” is Latin for shadows. The purpose of the service is to recreate the emotional aspects of the passion story. This is an unusual service with its own Liturgy. There is no music – the readings carry the service. And it’s not from the traditional Gospel readings.

It sets a mood and brings you through the Holy Week story through a set of “shadows”. The shadows move through the agony of last week- Betrayal, Agony of the Spirit, Denial, Accusation, Crucifixion, Death and Burial – symbolized by the lighted candles.

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Holy Week – Day by Day

Choose day: Palm Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Maundy Thursday Good Friday Holy Saturday Easter Sunday

Lectionary, Palm Sunday, Year B

 Lectionary, Palm Sunday

I.Theme –   "Strength is concealed in humility, pain is hidden in triumph, victory, in defeat, life, in death, God, in human form" -Diedrik Nelson

 

"Palm Sunday" – Giotto (1305-06)     "Betrayal & Arrest of Christ" – Fra Angelico (1450)

The lectionary readings are here or individually: 

Old Testament – Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm – Psalm 31:9-16 Page 623, BCP 
Epistle –Philippians 2:5-11 
Gospel – Mark 14:1-15:47 

"Borg and Crossan (The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem) imagine not one but two political processions entering Jerusalem that Friday morning in the spring of AD 30. In a bold parody of imperial politics, king Jesus descended the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem from the east in fulfillment of Zechariah’s ancient prophecy: "Look, your king is coming to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (Matthew 21:5 = Zechariah 9:9). From the west, the Roman governor Pilate entered Jerusalem with all the pomp of state power. Pilate’s brigades showcased Rome’s military might, power and glory. Jesus’ triumphal entry, by stark contrast, was an anti-imperial and anti-triumphal "counter-procession" of peasants that proclaimed an alternate and subversive community that for three years he had called "the kingdom of God."

This week has two liturgies – Liturgy of the Palms and Liturgy of the Passon.

"The church is called to reckon with paradox on this week: triumph and rejection, death and rebirth." So writes Melinda Quivik in Working Preacher. The week begins with Jesus triumphant arrival and by the end of the week he is killed.  Next week we trace the path day by day.  God is sacrificed by those he brings life. 

"Strength is concealed in humility, pain is hidden in triumph, victory, in defeat, life, in death, God, in human form" -Diedrik Nelson 

The theme is established by the first lesson. The servant is disciplined by suffering so he may bring strength and refreshment to the oppressed, but there are those who oppose him. Willingly he submits to those who torture and humiliate him. But God is his helper, so he is not disgraced or shamed. God vindicates him, no one can convict him.

The servant willingly suffers humiliation at the hands of his adversaries. He is not disgraced or put to shame because Yahweh vindicates him and helps him; no one can declare him guilty.

The servant of the Lord is opposed (Isaiah), is obedient to death (Philippians). He is betrayed, tortured and crucified by those who should have listened to him, and is recognized as Son of God by a centurion (Matthew). He will be vindicated (Isaiah), exalted by God (Philippians), and honored by the unexpected (Matthew).

The Passion story in Mark can be broken down in the following scenes:

The Passion story in Mark can be broken down in the following scenes:

1. Mark 14:1-11 extravagant love 
2. Mark 14:12-21 passover preparation 
3. Mark 14:22-25 Jesus’ last supper
4. Mark 14:26-42 agony in the garden 
5. Mark 14:43-52 Jesus’ arrest  
6. Mark 14:53-72 Jesus’ trial, Peter’s denial
7. Mark 15:1-20 Jesus before Pilate 
8. Mark 15:21-32 Jesus crucified 
9. Mark 15:33-41 Jesus’ death  
10. Mark 15:42-47 Jesus’ burial 

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Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday 1891

We are nearing the end of Lent. Lent proper began on Ash Wednesday and ends on Palm/Passion Sunday, a day that in turn inaugurates Holy Week. 

While Palm Sunday marks Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem,  the events of that day set in motion Jesus’ death 5 days later before the Passover begins. Zechariah had forecast “Zion’s king” coming “righteous and victorious” on a donkey. It looked like Jesus was proclaiming himself King of Israel to the anger of some of the Jewish authorities.

Palm Sunday has two liturgies – the Liturgy of the Palms where we consider Jesus arrival in Jerusalem from Galilee and the Liturgy of the Passion, a foreshadowing of Holy Week.   

Palm Sunday is the hinge between Lent and Holy Week. Lent has been the 40 day season of fasting and spiritual preparation intended to understand in practices, ritual and disciplines critical to living in the way of Jesus and Holy Week. Holy Week is a time of more intense fasting, reading and prayers in which we pay particular attention to the final days, suffering, and execution of Jesus.

Palm Sunday, the Setting: “We are Going Up to Jerusalem”

From Killing Jesus – Bill O’Reilly, Martin Dugard 

It is Sunday, April 2, A.D. 30. Pontius Pilate has just returned to Jerusalem and taken up residence in Herod the Great’s palace. Herod Antipas, the tetrarch, arrives in the city and stays just a block away, at the Hasmonean Palace. At the same time, Caiaphas prepares for the biggest festival of the year at his palace home in the Upper City.

Passover week is now about to begin.

The purification process is vital to properly celebrating Passover. It creates a physical and emotional state of mind that prepares a worshipper to embrace God’s holiness—thus the need to arrive in Jerusalem almost a week before the holy day

Anticipating the smell of roast lamb that will hang over Jerusalem as the Passover feasts are being cooked in ovens, the pilgrims count their money, worrying about how they will pay for that feast and the inevitable taxes they will incur in the city. Despite their sore feet and aching legs from walking mile after rugged mile through the wilderness, the travelers feel themselves transformed by the magnetic pull of Jerusalem. Their thoughts are no longer set on their farms back home and the barley crop that must be harvested immediately upon their return, but on holiness and purity

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” Jesus tells his disciples as they prepare to depart for the Passover…  

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Lectionary, Lent 5, Year B

I.Theme –   The new covenant

Wheat Fields Near Arles

 "Sunset: Wheat Fields Near Arles 1888"- Vincent Van Gogh

“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” – John 12:24

The lectionary readings are here  or individually: 

Old Testament – Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm – Psalm 51:1-13 Page 656, BCP
Psalm – Psalm 119:9-16 Page 764, BCP
Epistle –Hebrews 5:5-10
Gospel – John 12:20-33 

In this Sunday before Palm Sunday, we prepare for the New Covenant. We have been reflecting back upon God’s covenants throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, from Noah to Moses, and now we recognize a new covenant that God has written upon our hearts, where we know God, where God forgives our sins and remembers them no more. Jeremiah, speaking to a people who have continually failed to remember God and their part in the covenant, brings this message of hope, where God’s covenant cannot be forgotten because it is within one’s own heart. No longer will it appear that God has failed them when their leaders fail them, because God is bypassing the religious leaders and entering one’s own heart.

Psalm 51:1-12 is a song seeking forgiveness, where the psalmist confesses their sins and desires for God to show mercy and to be restored. The psalmist asks God to create a clean heart, where the writer can be fully restored to God. In reflection with the Jeremiah passage, we remember that God will forgive us and remember our sins no more by writing God’s covenant on our hearts.

Psalm 119:9-16 is from a different perspective, the desire of someone wishing to avoid sin and one who wants to stay close in relationship to God. The psalmist’s heart is open to seek God, the heart of where God’s covenant is written.

John 12:20-33 speaks of the way of the Cross, which is to die to this world. Those who seek to save their life will lose it, and Jesus says those who are willing to lose (in John’s Gospel the word is hate) their life will keep it. We must be willing to die to the things of this world, the sin that separates us, the greed and desire of worldly ways. We need a new heart to be open to God, and in order to have a new heart, we must be willing to follow Jesus, love others and love God, and put aside our own worldly desires and greed. Jesus models this in his life by glorifying God (Abba) and not himself. Throughout the Gospels, whenever Jesus performs a miracle, Jesus does so to show the glory of Abba God, not of himself. In this strange passage, where Jesus calls upon Abba God to glorify God’s name, God’s voice echoes back like thunder. Jesus says this was for the sake of the people, not for his own–that they might turn to Abba God, Creator God, God above–and recognize that in order to truly live, they must be willing to die to the world.

The new covenant with God is to give our lives over to Christ, to lose our lives, and even to use the strong language of Jesus, hate our lives. We need to be willing to put aside our own desires for our life to look to the needs of others–to love other and love God, not the success and ways of this world. As we prepare for the journey to the Cross of Holy Week, we recognize that our hearts are made new with God. The desires of this world have been replaced with the desire to intimately know God and to love our neighbors as ourselves, and God’s covenant is written on our hearts, to forgive our iniquity, and remember our sin no more.

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