Feb 23 2009

Holy Week in the Early Church Posted 3 years 84 days ago ago by Vern Sanders     0 Comments

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Holy week in the Early Church

by Robert Webber

The earliest evidence of an Easter celebration in the New Testament is found in the words of Paul written to the Corinthian community about A.D. 55: “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7). The clue to how Easter may have been celebrated in the primitive Christian community is found in the word Passover, for the earliest Christians were Jews.
Jewish worship passed two emphases on to early Christian worship: First, worship was rooted in an event. The Passover service, for example, celebrated the Exodus, when God brought the Israelites out of Egypt. Second, celebrating that event in worship made it contemporaneous—the original power of that event evoked feelings among contemporary worshipers similar to the response of the original participants in the event. The event was celebrated and made contemporary by telling the story and acting it out.

Perhaps the best insight into Easter worship as story told and acted out comes from the  writing of a woman named Egeria. Her Diary of a Pilgrimage contains a firsthand account of Easter in Jerusalem in the late fourth century. The diary, together with liturgies from that period, provides us with an inspiring picture of Easter in the early church.

In those days, preparation for Easter began seven weeks before the date. There was an emphasis on personal identification with the suffering of Jesus. These ancient Christians were convinced that the resurrection could not be adequately experienced without traveling the way of death themselves. They desired to fulfill Jesus’ admonitions of Mark 10 in a literal way by taking up the cross and going up to Jerusalem with him (v.33). They wanted to drink of the cup that he drank  and to be baptized with his baptism (v. 39). (Our Lord’s forty-day fast in the desert suggested the forty days of Lent.)
While this forty-day experience emphasized fasting and prayer, it was not done in the spirit of legalism or ritualism. The intent was to prepare for Easter by reliving the mystery. Fasting and prayer were not ends in themselves—they led the participants into a deeper experiential appreciation of the mystery of salvation through a subjective identification with Christ. By hearing the Word and by acting it out—not just for a day, but over a period of time—the message took hold more firmly.

Great Week

According to Egeria, what we call Holy Week was known as the “Great Week” in fourth-century Jerusalem. This week of the climactic events of the arrest, conviction, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is the most extraordinary week in the Christian calendar, the week in which the redemption of the world happened, in which the re-creation of the world began.

Palm Sunday

Egeria describes the day-to-day events of the Great Week:
On Palm Sunday, all the Christians assembled at the top of the Mount of Olives. Grasping palms and branches in their hands, they sang, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” as they walked slowly to the church in Jerusalem. The bishop of Jerusalem, symbolizing Christ, was in the midst of the crowd. When night fell, evening prayers were celebrated, concluded by a prayer in front of a cross erected for the occasion.

Monday

On Monday, they continually sang hymns and antiphons, and read pass-ages from the Scriptures appropriate to that day in Holy Week. Egeria re-ports that the readings and songs were continually interrupted with prayers.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, they did the same except for this: “The Bishop takes up the book of the Gospels, and while standing, reads the words of the Lord which are written in the Gospel according to Matthew at the place where he said, ‘Take heed that no man deceive you’” (Matt. 24:4).

Wednesday

On Wednesday, everything was done as on Monday and Tuesday except that the bishop read the passage where Judas went to the Jews to set the price they would pay him to betray the Lord (Matt. 26:1ff.; Mark 14:10f.; Luke 22:3-6ff.). Egeria reports that “while this good passage is being read, there is such moaning and groaning from among the people that no one can help being moved to tears in that moment.” (This, and similar comments throughout her account, suggest the powerful effect that re-enactment can have on the worshipers’ feelings.)

Thursday

On Thursday evening, Communion was celebrated. Then all went home to eat their last meal until Easter, and later returned to worship all night as a way of re-enacting the gospel accounts of Thursday night. “They continually sing hymns and antiphons and read the Scripture passages proper to the place and to the day. Between these, prayers are said.”

Friday

Early on Friday, after worshiping all night, the Christians proceeded to Gethsemane, where they read the passage describing the Lord’s arrest (Matt. 26:36-56). Egeria reports that “there is such moaning and groaning with weeping from all the people that their moaning can be heard practically as far as the city.” They then went to the place of the cross where the words of Pilate were read (Matt. 27:2-26; Mark 15:1-15; Luke 23:1-25; John 18:28; 19:16). Then the bishop sent the crowd home to meditate, instructing them to return about the second hour so that everyone would be “on hand here so that from that hour until the sixth hour you may see the holy wood of the cross, and thus believe that it was offered for the salvation of each and every one of us.”

On Friday night, they acknowledged the cross as the instrument of salvation. A cross was put on a table and the people passed by “touching the cross and the inscription, first with their foreheads, then with their eyes; and after kissing the cross, they move on.”

Saturday and Sunday

On Saturday, worship was conducted at the third and sixth hours. After nightfall the Easter Vigil was held. Although Egeria says little about this service, we know from other sources that it was a dramatic re-enactment of the Resurrection. It included a service of light that celebrated Christ as the light of the world, and the annual baptismal service in which people were baptized into Christ’s dying and rising. (The early church practice of baptism by immersion was a graphic enactment of burial and resurrection.) And the glorious service that occurred on Sunday morning (after the all-night vigil) celebrated the resurrection of Christ through readings, antiphons, preaching, and the Eucharist.

Consider the involvement, the total immersion in the death and resurrection of their Lord that the worshipers must have experienced. For weeks they had prepared for this service. Then, throughout Holy Week, they had been exhausted by the intensity of following after the events in Jesus’ life that led to his death. Now, after another night of vigil and anticipation, the moment of Jesus’ resurrection came. Because these people had entered the tomb with him, they were able to experience his resurrection—in a way that would never happen apart from the dramatic journey they had taken.

Eastertide

Finally, Egeria tells us that Easter did not end on Easter day. It was followed by eight days of celebration. The worshipers’ fast was over. They identified no longer with death, but with resurrection and life. For eight days the Christians gather in worship. These festive services were in sharp contrast to the sober preparations for the Passion. They extended the Resurrection side of Easter even as fasting had prepared for the Crucifixion.

 

Vern Sanders

Vern has served in some form of church music and worship leadership for 40 years in a variety of denominations both in the US and in Canada. He is currently Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church, Templeton, California. He regularly consults with churches and church leaders. Click on his name above to email him.

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