Holy Week Services Near Stanford University!

Why Holy Week?
From Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday, we are actually engaging in one single, barn burner of a party stretched across a week. In doing so, we’re loosening our usual Sunday-to-Sunday rhythm and allowing time to expand. We give ourselves space to enter the wild story of Jesus becoming the Christ. And---this is a wild story if we give ourselves the time and space to be present with it.

Holy Week is not meant to be a step-by-step historical reenactment of Jesus’ death (I know plenty of people talk and write about it that way). It is, however, very much about us. About our salvation story, about where we find ourselves in our death and resurrection cycles — as individuals, as a community, as a world.

These days invite reflection and humility and honesty- all the places where joy takes root and grows best. They invite us to notice how our own stories weave into the greater wisdom story we have inherited as Christians. This is about remembering who we are, where we come from, what we value, as well as seeing that God speaks even now.

The hours we spend together in these services and rituals are not about reciting everything perfectly or getting the form exactly right (though much time will be spent organizing these things). They are about creating space that is right enough (think vibes, it’s all about the vibes for this one) for deeper communion with God, for attentiveness to the Holy Spirit, and for whatever new life the holy mystery may be stirring among us.

That’s why we bother with Holy Week… because Easter Sunday doesn’t stand alone. It can’t. Easter Sunday blooms from the whole of our collaborative, interdependent story about how death never gets the final word-- and its annual retelling. 

with joy,
​Pr. Sam