We were blesssed to celebrate Holy Week (March 24-March 31) with 6 services – Palm Sunday, Tenebrae, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunrise Service and Easter 11am. These are among the best photos.
Holy Week
Best of Holy Week, 2024 – Words
We dwell so much in images today that the words often get forgotten or glossed over.
This is a limited look considering based on excerpts sermons and blogs for this year’s Holy Week, mostly from our services at St. Peter’s without considering hymns or prayers. That’s another story.
Here are 9 selections – totally subjective in choosing them!
Sunday’s Links, March 31, 2024
Easter Sunday, March 31.
Lector: Elizabeth Heimbach
Lector: Cookie Davis
Chalice Bearer: Alice Hughes
Altar Clean up: Jan Saylor
Lector: Ben Hicks
Lector: Johnny Davis
Acolyte: Arthur Duke
Chalice Bearer:Johnny Davis
Altar Clean up: Andrea Pogue
Coming up!
Recent Articles, March 31, 2024
From the Palm Sunday service, March 24
God’s Garden
Photos
Videos
Sermon
Bulletin
Holy Week
Best of Holy Week – Photos
Best of Holy Week- Words
Holy Week services
Holy Week introduction
Summary of the days
Time Table
Holy Week links
Why was Jesus killed?
Holy Week Day by Day
Services in Holy Week
Tenebrae, March 27
Digging into Tenebrae
Maundy Thursday, March 28
Bulletin, Maundy Thursday
Another Last Supper painting
Sermon, Maundy Thursday
Good Friday, March 29
Bulletin, Good Friday
Sermon, Good Friday
Good Friday is essential
Good Friday Art
Stations of the Cross
Stations in our graveyard
Easter Sunday
Sunrise Service Tom Hughes’ sermon
Sunrise Easter Photos 7am service
Bulletin, Easter Sunday
Sermon
Easter Photos 11am service
Easter videos
Easter Voices, Year B
Easter Year B commentary
Easter Commentary
Ministries
Portland Guitar Duo at St. Peter’s
Help us advertise the concert!
Past Concerts at St. Peter’s
Village Harvest, March, 2024
Creeds class
God’s Garden – Category
Discretionary Fund donations Feb. 11
Sacred Ground, Feb., 2024
Sacred Ground, Jan., 2024
Photos and video, Easter Sunrise Service, 7am, March 31, 2024
The weather made getting up early worth it! Many shades of light in the sky and on the river were awe inspiring on this Easter Sunday.
Video
Photos
Photos, Easter Sunday, 11am March 31, 2024
Of note this Sunday in the photos:
- the beautiful weather with nature blooming
- the flowers on the altar including a special one for a new birth,
- the work of the youth servers with the candles at different points in the service,
- Helmut Linne von Berg’s farewell,
- Larry Saylor birthday
Rev. Tom Hughes’ sermon, Sunrise service, March 31, 2024
“Happiness comes from in here. We live from the inside out not from the outside in”.
Video
Transcribed
I’m Tom, I’m from over here at St Peters and what a joy to be doing this and to hear that beautiful reading of that scripture again. You never get tired of that do you, that story over and over again.
What a wonderful gift that is, and on top of that, the perfect setting for being here together for the sunrise the Lord has provided for us so beautifully. And if you appreciate it, the symbolism here is everywhere. You’ve got spring, new beginning, new life coming up, you got the river of God flowing by out here and it just goes on and on, new life, new light into the world, the light of Christ – we’re celebrating it right now so it’s just everywhere. If you’re not already half dead you can see it around you, the presence and power and the love of God.
Easter Videos, March 31, 2024
Special segments this Sunday included :
#2 Dedication of the Paschal Candle
#3 Alleluis comes back, a project of the children
#10. Farewell Helmut Linne von Berg
#11. Birthday – Larry Saylor
1. Opening Hymn – “Jesus Christ is risen today”
2. Dedication of Paschal Candle
3. Alleluia comes back
Bulletin, Easter Sunday, March 31 2024
Click here to view in a new window.
Sermon, Easter, March 31, 2024
“Noli me tangere” Antonio Correggio (CA. 1525)
In the beginning, the Lord God formed a man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into that man’s nostrils the breath of life, and so the man became a human being. And then, the Lord God planted a garden in Eden. And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, a river to water the garden, and God put the man there to till the garden and to care for it. The Garden of Eden was so inviting that God would walk there in the cool of the evening breeze, reveling in the beauty of the garden.
Since the beginning of time, gardens have provided sustenance, beauty and inspiration.
Those blessed enough to have a garden witness the ways in which the garden changes through the seasons.
They’ve tilled the ground, watched with an amazement the new growth springing up from the seeds they have planted. Gardeners harvest, and then when the plants are spent and dead, they put the garden to bed to rest for the winter. And then the gardener waits, the seasons change, and it’s time to till and to plant again.
Gardens have always been places of death and resurrection.
That first man, blessed to live in the Garden of Eden, could not simply live there, reveling in its blessings and beauty, but ended up putting himself above God, and sin came into the garden. God sent the man and the woman out of the Garden so that they would not eat from the Tree of Life and live forever.
And so death came into the world.
Easter Voices, Year B
1. David Lose – "It’s Only the Beginning"
The story of what God is doing in and through Jesus isn’t over at the empty tomb, you see. It’s only just getting started. Resurrection isn’t a conclusion, it’s an invitation. And Jesus’ triumph over death, sin, and hate isn’t what Mark’s Gospel is all about. Rather, Mark’s Gospel is all about setting us up to live resurrection lives and continue the story of God’s redemption of the world.
Mark gives us a clue to that in the very first verse, in an opening sentence that is almost as abrupt and awkward as the closing one. Mark, you’ll remember, doesn’t give us the long genealogy of Matthew; the tender story of shepherds, angels, and a mother and her newborn together in a stable as in Luke; or the theologically soaring and totally wonderful hymn to the Word made flesh of John. Rather, Mark says simply, even pointedly, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Goodness gracious, but that doesn’t even sound like an introduction (and, indeed, some have wondered if it was Mark’s title rather than opening line). But the key thing here is that Marks says straight off that all of Mark’s writing is only the beginning of the good news of what God has done and is still doing for the world through Jesus the Christ.
It’s only the beginning; this story isn’t over. It’s only the beginning, and we have a part to play. It’s only the beginning, and if you wonder why there is still so much distress and pain in the world, it’s because God’s not done yet. It’s only the beginning, and Mark is inviting us to get out of our seats and into the game, sharing the good news of Jesus’ complete identification with those who suffering and his triumph over injustice and death with everyone we meet. It’s only the beginning, and we’re empowered and equipped to work for the good in all situations because we trust God’s promises that all will in time come to a good end even when we can’t see evidence of that.
It’s only the beginning….