Dear LAC,
During Advent, we talked a little bit about the arts in worship as a type of proclamation as we prepared for this year’s Dancing Magnificat, and as we look forward to another arts-based service for Good Friday, it seems like a good time for a recap:
In our Reformed tradition, proclamation (κήρυγμα / kerygma) is the heart of our worship. We believe that there is something transformative that happens when we gather as a community and read scripture together. The Holy Spirit is at work within us and within the Word of God to lead us to understanding, wisdom, and insight. This act of communal engagement, transformation, and illumination of God’s Word is called proclamation. We are familiar with proclamation happening during the sermon; however, we also experience these moments of transcendence during other parts of worship–from choral anthems that help us to hear God’s Word in a new way to stories of how our mission partners are living out the gospel during the moment for mission.
This Good Friday, we will hear the story of Jesus’s arrest, trial, crucifixion, and death as told in John 18-19. We’ll pause along the way to meditate and reflect with art and music. Our proclamation comes in that space of reflection, where sacred storytelling, art, and the haunting refrain from “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” are woven together by the Spirit and transformed into something greater than the sum of its components.
A wife weeps while hugging her husband in his final moments in a COVID-19 unit at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, California.
Our art comes from Mary Button’s (the vicar of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Kingston, NY) exhibit Stations of the Cross: Pandemic Hope. Vicar Button juxtaposes traditional stations of the cross with hand-drawn illustrations of hope, resiliency, and relationship as witnessed in news stories covering the COVID-19 pandemic. Each scene is paired with a stanza of Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers.” Through these multi-media collages, the cosmic story of death and resurrection, of suffering and compassion, is reflected through our shared experience of the past year. In a virtual service, Vicar Button shared:
“My interest in the stations of the cross began when I was in graduate school, exploring the connections between art and the devotional lives of Christians everywhere. I created my first series in 2010, and have created eight more in the ensuing years, each engaging with contemporary social justice issues and bringing those stories into the story of the passion.
What our holy scripture teaches us is that God is with us in our suffering, and the goal of these projects is for us to see Jesus’s suffering in the suffering of those around us. When we can see God in one another and be present in each other’s pain, we can change the world.”
To learn more, or purchase a digital download of the art and accompanying prayer prompts (a portion of all proceeds will go to RIP Medical Debt–$40,000 of medical debt has been forgiven from Pandemic Hope downloads thus far!) please visit Vicar Button’s website, https://www.marybutton.com.
Beloved, it was an honor and a privilege to work on this service. I must confess to feeling somewhat numb and weary as we have passed the one-year mark of online worship, but something broke open in my heart while editing, and I felt a deep sense of both grief and hope. I hope this Good Friday worship experience will be meaningful for you, and will leave you feeling ready to change the world. You may download a bulletin here [LINK] and join us for the livestream at noon on Friday via Facebook and via our website.
With Grace and Peace,
Marranda Major
Church Secretary, Communication Coordinator, and Video Editrix