In my ‘mother church’ in Pollok much was made of Holy Week. Weeks ahead the parish was leafletted to let people know about the services that would be taking place. Every morning there would be a service at 7. 45 am which some people attended before work. (It was at one of these that I conducted my first service aged 17.) There would also be a service at 7. 30 pm usually conducted by a guest preacher with tea and hot cross buns afterwards. And on Easter Day there was a service at 6 am followed by a family breakfast. So I grew up with a sense that this was a special time for fellowship and reflection on the final days of Jesus’ life on earth.
That general pattern of worship was followed at Glasgow Cathedral where I was Assistant for two years. The one new experience for me was the Three Hours Devotion on Good Friday. The focus here was on the seven words of Jesus from the Cross which were the basis of meditations given by seven preachers. That might sound like heavy going but but I always found it helpful. And there was always an opportunity for people to leave during the hymns!
When I went to my first parish in Stevenston: Ardeer I was delighted to find that Holy Week was observed with services every evening. In my first year there I preached every evening. When Easter Day dawned, the one day when you want to exude some ‘oomph’, I was exhausted. So in following years I had some pals to help out with the preaching.
I am aware that not every Christian tradition has a place for Holy Week and I respect their reasons. It seems to me, though, that it’s an opportunity to reflect more deeply on Jesus’ sacrifice and what it means to us now. The space that is given in the Gospels to the events in Jesus’ last week is proof of the importance the early Church placed on His death. That same focus is vital in the strengthening of the Church’s faith in every age. But it should never be forgotten that that same focus can bring to birth new faith. Some years ago a woman told me that she had come to faith in a service I conducted on the Tuesday of Holy Week in Croftfoot Parish Church. Sometimes we don’t take seriously enough Paul’s conviction that the preaching of the cross is ‘the power of God and the wisdom of God.’ (1 Corinthians 1: 24)
Of course there will be no services this Holy Week and that will feel strange to many of us. But I suspect there will be relevant broadcasts on television and radio as well as a flood of material online. My priority will be to engage with the story of Jesus’ last days on earth as we find it in the Gospels. I once heard Professor Donald Macleod say that the story has its own power in which we need to trust for the strengthening of faith and the birth of faith. Verse 4 of the hymn ‘Tell me the old, old story . . .’ still has something to say to us about the power of the story:
‘Tell me the same old story
When you have cause to fear
That this world’s empty glory
Is costing me too dear.
Yes, and when that world’s glory
Shall dawn upon my soul,
Tell me the old, old story,
‘Christ Jesus makes thee whole.’
The story has power to turn our hearts more decisively towards Christ to experience the change only He can bring. No Holy Week services this year but we have the story. That means Holy Week 2020 could be the most significant for many people.
