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A Message from Our Pastor

The Easter Triduum

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We call these three days individually as Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and East er Sunday. Yes, I know I have four days listed here as we tend to count days from sunrise to sunrise or more properly from midnight to mid night. The Jewish people (remember Jesus and Mary were Jewish) measure days from sunset to sunset. You may recall they went to break the legs of those crucified “for the Sabbath day of that week was a solemn one. “As the Sabbath begins at sunset, they needed the crucified dead and buried while the Jews were still allowed to do work.

 

Day one begins at Sunset… and this day is FULL. It begins with the Last Supper. “Take and eat, this is my body.” “Take and drink, this is my blood.” After this Passover meal they go to spend the night in the Garden of Olives. Jesus stays up late praying. Jesus gets arrested and taken before the Sanhedrin and is convicted of blasphemy. By dawn he is brought before Pi late, is sent to King Herod who happens to be in town, and gets sent back to Pilate. The crowd chooses Barabbas rather than Jesus who is then beaten, scourged and crowned with thorns. We then have the parade of those to be crucified to Golgotha (the place of the skulls) and Jesus is nailed to the cross in the early afternoon. Jesus dies on the cross and is hurriedly buried in the twilight… as it is almost the beginning of the Sabbath. Please note, from a Jewish perspective, the Last Supper and Jesus’ Passion and death occur on the SAME DAY. They are not two, but components of one continuous event.

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Day two begins at Sunset… and this is a day of REST. Just as God in chapter one of the book of Genesis rests on the Sabbath Day of creation week, so God the Father and His Son rest in preparation for the new creation.

 

Day three begins at Sunset… and this day radiates with new life. We don’t know the exact minute Jesus is raised, but we know that by sun rise the Son is already risen and about before the women arrive at the tomb at dawn. Jesus is raised on the third day… the first day of our new creation and covenant.

 

Lent ENDS at sunset on Holy Thursday… as this is when the EASTER Triduum begins. Please pray with us these special days.

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