Dear Friends,
The season of Lent is just around the corner. This important part to the Christian year is a season of penitence during which we prepare for the annual celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Lent and Easter will look a little different this year due to COVID-19 precautions, but we will still have both virtual and in-person ways to observe the season.
Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. We will have an in-person Ash Wednesday service on February 17. The service will also be live streamed. We will not have the traditional imposition of ashes due to COVID concerns, but we will still mark this important day with worship.
We will also continue the tradition of Wednesday Lenten services. One of our ongoing COVID precautions is to refrain from serving food. As such, we will not be serving lunch on these Wednesdays. We will also not have guest preachers at these services. These in-person services will be live streamed.
During Holy Week, we will observe the holy days of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday with traditional Stations of the Cross and in-person, live streamed services.
One of our areas of biggest concern, however, centers on Easter Day. Rightly so, Easter is our most well attended Sunday service of the year. It is the day Jesus conquered death on our behalf. Even if we were to see half of our normal Easter attendance, there is no way for us to safely accommodate people. Nothing would make me happier than to celebrate the risen Christ in an overflowing service of worship. The concerns for Easter are like those of Christmas Eve. Packing the sanctuary risks our becoming ground zero for COVID cases in Florence. On the other hand, if we were to limit the sanctuary to a safe occupancy level and ask people to sign up in advance for a specific worship time, we would likely need ten services to accommodate previous years’ attendance. We would still run the risk of having to turn away people at the door. With this in mind, we will have virtual Easter services at 9:00 from The Well and 11:15 from the Sanctuary. As with Christmas Eve, this allows us to have big services with all the music that helps boost our Easter joy. We will also have an in-person, outdoor sunrise service at 7:30 on Easter morning in the Irby Street parking lot.
A year ago, I never would have imagined that I would be planning for a second Lent and Easter with COVID in mind. Regardless, I find hope in the themes of Lent and Easter. The Lenten journey leads first to the cross. The cross represents pain and death, but the cross also reminds us of Jesus’ victory over death. We know that the cross is not the end, because Easter is coming. The day of resurrection is just around the corner. Joy lies on the other side of pain and resurrection is as sure a reality as death. We have been through a lot these past months, but the end is promised. Resurrection is promised. Easter joy persists. Let us remember these words of Scripture:
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:38-39
Yours in Christ,
Thomas