What a week!  In the brief quiet of this Easter afternoon, let me say, ‘thank you Lord.’

Thank you God, for a creative, talented, grace-filled, loving staff team.  Becky found beautiful art and produced clear worship guides.  Louise provided safe child-care and creative activities for our children.  Kathy kept our building clean and helped make the Vigil party happen.  Matt has a tremendous gift to arrange music, develop musicians, and provide space for worship.  Erin’s sermon at the vigil showed off her English-majorness and her deep insights to the Scriptures.  Liz provided intercession for all the liturgy and helped us be confident in where we designated our Holy Week offering.

Thank you Steve for a BEAUTIFUL cross that augmented my Good Friday and gave a rich picture of what Jesus had done.  Thanks to Tim for helping set it up and carry it out.

Thank you God for palm fronds, tubas, saxophones, trumpets, and trombones.  Thank you for the Reading of the Passion.

Thank you Jesus for dirty feet, frail minds that tend to forget, and hungry souls that long for spiritual food.  Thank you for setting us an example and the space to do unto others.

Thank you for cellos and violins and djembes and keyboards and bass guitars.

Thank you for Jesus for 7 powerful words that were spoken from your cross.  Thank you for 7 thoughtful, courageous men and women who invited us in to see their heart.

Thank you for silence.  And darkness.  And candles.

Thank you for delicious sour dough bread that became the sacrament of your body.

Thank you for the pounding of nails.

Thank you for lilies and book lights that become illuminators of the cross.

Thank you God for your Scripture, for the opportunity to read so much of it in a week, to let it soak into us, to marinate.

Thank you for the careful way your church has remembered its history–  for beautiful prayers and meaningful traditions.

Thank you for fasts.  And thank you for letting them end.

Thank you God for those who came early and stayed late, for those who intentionally looked around to see what they could do, for those who paid attention and jumped in.

Thank you for early morning insights, talking teddy bears, and overdue library books.

God, thank you for Restoration.  I love this church.  I love worshiping YOU with them.

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen.

The Lord is Risen, indeed.

-David

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole,

is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more–

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

I have sung these words so often — they’re the third verse of Horatio Spafford’s wonderful hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul” — and they always move me. Spafford creates such a powerful image of what Jesus’ crucifixion means, what it accomplished. As David preached on Sunday, “All life-changing love is substitutionary self-sacrifice,” and Jesus’ love is the most life-changing of all. As he was nailed to the cross, he was willingly and lovingly substituting his righteousness for our sin… Our sin really has been nailed to the cross.

On Good Friday, we stop to ponder this, to sit in silence before the cross, aware of the depth of both our sin and God’s love. This year, we will have the opportunity to sit before an actual cross, and to nail our own sin to it. Steve Brooks (who built our beautiful, reclaimed-wood cross that hangs behind the altar) is building us another cross — a big cross, heavy and rough. From 12:00 – 3:00 on Friday afternoon, and again from 7:00-7:30 on Friday evening, the church will be open for silent prayer. We’ll have pieces of paper, we’ll have hammers, and we’ll have nails.  As you pray, you can (anonymously) write on those pieces of papers any sins you want to confess to God. And then you can nail those pieces of paper to the cross.

At the end of the Good Friday service on Friday evening, we will carry the cross out of the church, a visible reminder of the way Jesus carried our sins. And at the beginning of the Great Vigil on Saturday night, as we light the new fire that represents the light of Christ, we will tear down those pieces of paper from the cross and burn them… as the darkness of our sin is consumed by the light of the life of the risen Jesus. “Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”

So join us these next days as we journey from the upper room to the cross and ultimately gather together to proclaim “Alleluia!” at the empty tomb.

• Maundy Thursday — The Last Supper — 7:30 pm (nursery available)
• Good Friday
• Silent prayer — 12:00-3:00 pm, 7:00-7:30pm
• The Last Words of Christ — 7:30 pm (nursery available)
• Holy Saturday — The Great Vigil of Easter — 8:30pm (no nursery)
• Easter Sunday — Holy Eucharist — 9:00 & 11:00 am and 5:00 pm

As always, Matt Hoppe has put much thought and prayer into choosing the music for all of these services. Listening to the music before the service is one way to prepare yourself for worship, to open your heart to the Holy Spirit’s work in you. Each week, Matt posts the music for the upcoming services at restorationmusic.wordpress.com.  I encourage you to visit the site this week, to receive the gift of these carefully chosen songs, and to invite God to use them to prepare you to meet him in new and profound ways this Holy Week.

So grateful to be on this journey with you…

- Erin

What a great 4 days of worship at Restoration. Here are my favorite memories–

• Washing feet on Maundy Thursday. Such a powerful reminder of the attentiveness, intimacy, and service of our Lord.  I think it is easier to wash than be washed.  It is very humbling to be served.
• Watching the candles go out on Good Friday.  Death thought it had won.  The reflections from our community inspired my worship.
• Hearing Matt sing the Exultet at the Vigil.  Especially this line–  ”How wonderful and beyond our knowing, O God, is your mercy and loving-kindness to us, that to redeem a slave, you gave a Son.”  What a great God we serve.
• Baptizing Brooks and Evan at the vigil.  Might be top 5 moment of the year.  The party afterwards…  so fun.
• Sunday!  Alleluia!

What was your favorite memory? If you missed these days, mark your calendar for next year [April 5-8, 2012  :)].

Small Groups Have Started

But registration is open until May 15.  I invite every person who worships with us on the weekend to be in a small group to wrestle with the Scripture and make new friends.  It is a short term commitment (until the end of June) that has huge benefits for your relationship with God.

Let me highlight 3 in particular:

1. The Marriage Course. Laurel and I have gone through this 3 times.  We love the practical help on forgiveness, conflict resolution, sex, in-laws, and listening.  We love that it has the feel of a date night–  with great content.  It is one of the best 8 weeks we have invested in our marriage. I would love for every married couple at Restoration to take this course.  I hope you do!
2. Parenting Young Kids. Tom and Patty Downie have given us a gift–  a Saturday evening [5:30pm] where a babysitter will feed your kids and watch them while you talk with other parents and hear great wisdom and and counsel from the Downies.  If you are in the thrill and grind of parenting young kids (and about 80 of you are…), this is an opportunity that was created for you.
3. What We Believe.  Sure, it’s early on a Thursday (6:30am).  But it doesn’t start until May 12 [you can procrastinate a bit].  Do you want to ask deeper questions about Jesus, the church, and God?  This is the place.  Come take an hour before work and go deeper with the Lord.  I’d love to have you there.

May 3 at 7:30pm

We are in a season of praying, listening, and asking God to lead us into the next chapter at Restoration.  Our last night of corporate prayer and discussion is Tuesday, May 3.  I invite everyone to come.  We will cover things like facility, staff, and how are church makes disciples of Jesus. If this is your church home, this is a conversation in which you want to participate.

Fun times.

I love this place.

Part of what I love about Holy Week is that it invites us also to intentionally walk alongside Jesus on the way of the cross. From Maundy Thursday all the way through to Easter Sunday, we take time to be with our Savior at each step of the way. There’s nothing new about the story, of course. But there’s always something new in our story — in the things we’ve experienced, the ways we’ve been challenged and grown in the year past. So I find that each year, as I walk through this week, God shows me something new about what Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection mean for me and for our world.

Will you join me this week on the way to the cross? I hope to see you at one or all of these special Holy Week services.

• Maundy Thursday
  • 7:30pm – Holy Eucharist and footwashing service*
• Good Friday
  • 12 – 3pm – Church open for prayer and reflection
  • 7:30pm – The Seven Last Words of Christ*
• Holy Saturday
  • 8:30pm – The Great Vigil of Easter – Baptisms, Holy Eucharist, and a great Resurrection Party!
• Easter Sunday
  • 9am, 11am, and 5pm – Holy Eucharist*

* – nursery care provided

During Holy Week, all the offerings we collected were given to the Anglican Relief and Development Fund (ARDF). The total that came in that week, including Easter was close to $11,000!!  We gave it all away.

ARDF is an organization committed to an holistic, high impact community development approach that crosses cultural and economic boundaries in some of the most challenging parts of the world. They work directly with Anglican churches in the Global South to ensure that believers are strengthened and encouraged, lives are rescued and made whole, and Christ is glorified.

Currently, some of ARDF’s projects include training healthcare workers in Kenya to prevent the spread of Malaria, training locals in Sudan in new agricultural techniques to help them move toward self-sufficient farming, and providing relief for earthquake victims in Chile. 

Thanks, Restoration, for giving so generously to our brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Maundy Thursday

‘This do in remembrance of me.’ Jesus connected His redemption of the world and the promise of restoration to a meal– a bit of bread, a sip of wine– a reminder that we are being rescued. He also washed His disciples his feet, including the one who would betray him. A bit of love that foreshadowed how he would love us to the end.

Good Friday

Prayers of Reconciliation

Luke described the last three hours of Jesus’ crucifixion like this:

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

So from 12 (the 6th hour) until 3 (the 9th hour), we’ll open the church for prayer.  If you come, you can expect quiet, soft music, not many people, and a still environment in which to pray.

Remembering that the curtain was town in 2, that the dividing wall between God and humanity was torn down, and that we have been reconciled with our Maker, there will also be an opportunity for you to pray with me (David), the liturgy for reconciliation of a penitent. Restoration has a rock-solid theology of the priesthood of all believers.  God does not hear us better if we pray with a pastor.  But, we also have a strong belief that the Gospel is catalyzed by community.  Sometimes it is helpful for people to pray with someone else.  Sometimes it helps to pray with a pastor, who will guard your confidentiality and say words of grace and peace in response.  Sometimes.

I personally like to deliberately pray this liturgy with someone else once a year–  to be intentional about confession.  This will be helpful for some and mandatory for none.  I am trying to provide one more resource for you to engage with God during Holy Week.

If you are interested in praying the liturgy with me, you can find me at the front of the sanctuary between 12 and 3 on Friday.

The 7 Last Words of Christ

Friday night, we will gather at 7:30 to think about the 7 statements that Jesus uttered from the cross.  This will be a moving service of personal reflection and music.

The Great Vigil of Easter

8:30pm We will move from ‘darkness’ through the lighting of the Paschal candle, to the story of the deliverance from Egypt, to the narrative of redemption from Genesis on, to the renewal of our baptism vows, to the Great Shout of Alleluia (don’t forget to bring a bell!) as we conclude our Holy Week worship with the first Eucharist of Easter. After, we will break our Lenten Fast downstairs with chocolate, sweets, and celebration!

Some folks fast from Thursday night to Saturday.
Some choose to pray the Daily Office.
Some choose to clear some time to journal their confessions or their hopes. Some make plans to pray with others and give thanks for their friendship.

Three Days. Resurrection is coming.

And yet.  There’s something about the quiet drive to church, the dimly lit sanctuary, the creak of the pew as I settle in. There’s something about the ancient words of scripture and prayers and the quiet periods of stillness and reflection. There’s something about this discipline of prayer that is at once personal and communal that makes me set the alarm early and will my feet to the floor when it goes off well before daylight. I think that something is the fact that, for reasons I don’t fully know, God chooses to meet me in unique and powerful ways in these bleary-eyed early mornings.

I’m grateful to have these opportunities for prayer and worship as we journey through this Holy Week. In yesterday’s collect for Palm Sunday, we asked God to “mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of Jesus’ suffering, and also share in his resurrection.” It’s an audacious prayer, frighteningly bold on both counts. But one of the gifts of the church is its rich tradition of Holy Week services that guide us through Jesus’ last days — a kind of road map through that daunting prayer. From the quiet mornings in the beginning of the week, through the mounting intensity of the last supper (Maundy Thursday) and the crucifixion (Good Friday), on through the dramatic proclamation of Saturday’s Great Vigil and the joyful triumph of Easter Sunday — it’s a profoundly powerful journey.  And it’s one that never fails to open my heart in new ways to the unspeakable goodness of the Gospel.

I hope you’ll join me on that journey this week. Set your alarm early, or make a change in your usual evening routine. Choose to follow Jesus in the way of his suffering.  I think you’ll find that your “Alleluia!” will be that much more joyful when we reach the empty tomb on Sunday morning.

• Tuesday — 6 am — Morning Prayer
• Wednesday — 6 am — Morning Prayer
• Maundy Thursday — 7:30 pm — Eucharist and Footwashing
• Good Friday — 12:00 – 3:00 pm — Church is open for prayer and the liturgy of reconciliation
• Good Friday — 7:30 pm — Seven Last Words of Christ
• Holy Saturday — 8:30 pm — Great Vigil of Easter
• Easter Sunday — 8:30 and 10:00 am — Holy Eucharist

Holy Week at Restoration

• Palm Sunday:  Eucharist at 8:30 and 10
• Monday:  Morning Prayer at 6am
• Tuesday:  Morning Prayer at 6am
• Wednesday:  Morning Prayer at 6am
• Thursday:  Maundy Thursday with footwashing, Eucharist, stripping of the altar at 7:30pm
• Friday:  12-3 prayer and opportunities for ‘reconciliation of the penitent’ [BCP p. 449]; 7 last words of Christ at 7:30pm
• Saturday:  The Great Vigil of Easter at 8:30pm with Resurrection Party following
• Sunday:  Easter services at 8:30 and 10

Even as we journey deep into the heart of Lent, we’re keeping our eyes lifted toward Holy Week and the great hope of Jesus’ resurrection.  The culmination of all of our Holy Week services and the beginning of our celebration of Easter is the Great Vigil of Easter.  The Vigil is held the Saturday night before Easter Sunday.  This year, it’s on April 3rd at 8:30 pm.

The Vigil is a beautiful, powerful service of worship (definitely my favorite of the whole year).  The liturgy is in four parts, and through scripture, song, and sacrament, it unfolds the great story of redemption.  It begins in silent darkness and proceeds to a joyous, light-filled proclamation of Alleluia!

The Vigil dates back to the earliest centuries of the church, when it was the time that new converts to the Christian faith were baptized. (This came after a period of preparation and fasting — what eventually became the season of Lent.)  Baptism is still at the heart of the Easter Vigil.  Not only will we all renew our baptismal vows, but we’ll have the opportunity to baptize any adults who want to be baptized!

Would you like to be baptized? If you have committed to following Jesus as the one who forgives and rescues you — or if you would like to — and you’ve never been baptized, we would love to baptize you at the Easter Vigil.  If you’re interested or have questions, please contact David or Erin (you can reach us here). We’d love to talk with you!

(If you have an infant whom you would like to be baptized, we’ll have infant baptisms on Pentecost, May 23rd. Please contact us if you’re interested.)

I really hope that all of you will consider coming to the Great Vigil of Easter. I promise that you’ll experience the joy of Christ’s resurrection in a profoundly powerful way!

Tonight we will remember Jesus’ last supper with his friends–  how he instituted a meal of remembrance and instructed them to Eucharist each time they gathered together.

We will also remember his words:

You also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have given you an example, that also should do just as I have done to you.  John 13: 14b-15.

On Friday we remember the cross.  We will have the opportunity to participate in 3 services.  In the morning there is a Good Friday service for children and families at The Falls Church at 10am.  Then, in The Historic Falls Church, from 12-3, we will remember the 7 last words of Christ that he spoke from the cross.  At 7pm, we will gather with other churches in Arlington County at Westover Baptist to worship.

On Saturday we wait.  We will return to Restoration for The Great Vigil of Easter.  We will move from ‘darkness’ through the lighting of the Paschal candle, to the story of the deliverance from Egypt, to the narrative of redemption from Genesis on, to the renewal of our baptism vows, to the Great Shout of Alleluia as we conclude our Holy Week worship with the first Eucharist of Easter.  We will break our Lenten Fast at the Breeds with chocolate, sweets, dinner, and celebration!

It all begins tonight, Thursday, at 7:30pm.  Some people will choose to fast from now until Saturday.  Most of us will go home to sleep in between.  :)

It’s time for the Triduum:  the days when we remember His passion and give thanks for the victory He won.

Come waste time with us during Holy Week at Restoration.