Letter from Amy: April 16, 2025 (Holy Wednesday)

Icon of the Entombment of Christ, 15th century, Tretyakov Gallery

Dear friends,

I have loved this Lent together. The somber new response to the decalogue (special thanks to Grant for composing and Anna for transcribing). The sermon series on acedia, which has stirred more conversation than almost any I can remember. The stories of Jesus in Luke's gospel. The silences — after Sunday’s six minutes, I kind of felt like I was just getting started. (Meanwhile our older kids chose to practice silence for around twenty minutes before the service, putting us all to shame.) Isn’t it wonderful to observe ourselves growing in this practice, year after year?

Every year Lent is the same, and every year Lent is different. This year’s Lent has taken place amidst a world that feels unusually lenty, a long wilderness of change, uncertainty, worries, and sorrows.

So I am especially grateful that this year, we will walk through Holy Week a little differently. Due to space constraints (Drew, Beverley Hills, and Greenbrier were all unavailable), we will not gather for our annual foot-washing service on Maundy Thursday. Instead, we will gather around the table in each other’s homes, washing each other’s hands and remembering the last supper in hiddenness and simplicity. There are still a few spots; sign up here.

Then on Good Friday, we’ll hold our usual Tenebrae service at 7pm in both Virginia and Maryland. I love this service and am grateful that we can offer it in two locations this year. We retell the final hours of Jesus’ life from John’s gospel, punctuated by lengthening silences, extinguishing candles, and acapella singing. The sanctuary at Beverley Hills will also be open from 1-4pm if you would like to drop by for silence, prayer, or confession in a quiet sanctuary.

Saturday marks another change — for the first time in many years, we are holding an Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Sometimes called "silent Saturday," this is the day when we remember Jesus’ entombment and absence from the world. Our lives are often lived in a sort of Holy Saturday, a long night when the dawn still seems far off.

So I am grateful that in this year of a particularly lenty Lent, when God's absence from the world feels acute, we will return to the practice of keeping vigil. Together, we will wait through the long night for the dawn of Easter to break (okay, more of a metaphorical dawn, because your clergy are only human!).

The theologian Alan Lewis wrote a book about Holy Saturday while he was dying of cancer. He wrote that this day “forces us to think, at deeper levels yet, of who God is and how God works: present-in-absence, and absent where most present; alive in death, and dead when most creative and life-giving.”

Present in absence, alive in death. The Easter Vigil is designed to help us enter into this paradox and wait there, together. The service begins outside around the fire and the proceeds into the sanctuary, where we recount the story of our redemption in near-darkness. There are long silences, sensory elements, deep-cuts from the canticles of our prayer book, chanting, songs, poetry, and more. We will truly “keep vigil” — waiting in the darkness and stillness for something utterly new to break through.

And it will! God always brings life from death and light from darkness. We will celebrate our resurrection with shouts of joy, ringing bells (bring 'em if you got 'em!), raucous singing, and the first communion of Easter. Then everyone can ride the alleuia-high a little longer, lingering over the fire pit for late-night s’mores.

Finally, we will gather once more on Easter morning for a potluck brunch at 10am on Beverley Hills’ beautiful natural playground. Note to parents: Beverley Hills is holding an egg hunt immediately after us, so please gently tell your children DON’T TOUCH THE METHODIST EGGS! If your kids happen to pick up an egg (or 5), please help put them back before we depart as an act of kindness to the children who will follow us. (I’m sorry we can’t have our own egg hunt — someday! — but this was the best option for upholding our friendship with Beverley Hills and our ability to worship Easter morning!) And another note to parents, or really anyone: Josie's blog about how to celebrate Easter at home is full of simple, thoughtful, helpful guidance.

Besides, who needs plastic eggs when you have delicious food (sign up to bring something!), hot coffee, flower arranging, and great conversation? Bring flowers, greenery, branches, anything lovely from home for our annual Easter children’s procession.

***

After Sunday's sermon, someone sent this poem to Katie, and she shared it with me. It feels like a fitting way to enter into the coming days.

Jesus Weeps

by Malcolm Guite

Jesus comes near and he beholds the city

And looks on us with tears in his eyes,

And wells of mercy, streams of love and pity

Flow from the fountain whence all things arise.

He loved us into life and longs to gather

And meet with his beloved face to face

How often has he called, a careful mother,

And wept for our refusals of his grace,

Wept for a world that, weary with its weeping,

Benumbed and stumbling, turns the other way,

Fatigued compassion is already sleeping

Whilst her worst nightmares stalk the light of day.

But we might waken yet, and face those fears,

If we could see ourselves through Jesus’ tears.

I'm praying for your Holy Week and hope to see you over the next four days. All the service details are on our website. Please reach out if there’s any way I can pray.

Keeping vigil,

Amy