The Three-Day Feast: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter

Worship Matters

by Gail Ramshaw

Recent decades have witnessed the revival of the ancient liturgies of the Three Days—Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil. In this book Ramshaw gives a little history and a lot of suggestions about how these services can enrich the worship life of your entire assembly.

96 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2004

Reviews

[Lou Florio · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a simple but helpful review for encountering the Three Days. Each chapter has some questions for reflection. It could serve as a group study book helping people to understand historical practices even as one imagines new efforts in one’s congregation.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little book, by Lutheran liturgical scholar Gail Ramshaw, is a gem; it is packed with interesting facts and a very appealing perspective on the Triduum. It's the kind of book where I underline numerous passages, and I'm determined to keep this book in mind every year I begin to prepare for Holy Week. This year, for instance, my Good Friday sermon focused on the cross as the "Tree of Life," and I re-quoted Ramshaw's quote from an anonymous second-century preacher:

The cross is the tree of my eternal salvation nourishing and delighting me. I take root in its roots. I am extended in its branches. I am shaded by its shade. Its flowers are my flowers; I am wholly delighted by its fruits. This cross is my nourishment when I am hungry, my fountain when I am thirsty, my covering when I am stripped, for my leaves are no longer fig leaves but the breath of life. This is the ladder of Jacob, the way of angels. This is my tree, wide as the firmament, which extends from earth to the heavens. It is the pillar of the universe, the support of the whole world. . . . 42-43

I will probably be on sabbatical next year during Holy Week, but perhaps the following year I'll put this in my Lent/HolyWeek/Easter newsletter message:

One pastoral issue continuing in the twenty-first centurty is that throngs of people attend a celebratory service on Easter Day without having kept in any way an observance of the passion and death of Christ. . . . [F]or those joyous church members who worship only on Easter, if the Easter service is all joyous music, rented trumpeters, banks of flowers, pretty hats, and egg hunts for the children, Christian identity has shrunk to only a small part of its meaning. . . . The Holy Communion of Maundy Thursday, the devotion of Good Friday, and the celebrations of Easter need one another for each to have its most profound Christian truth. The three days do not mean for us to pretend that we are back in approximately A.D. 35, walking around with Jesus. Rather, we keep all three days inspired by the Spirit of the resurrection. We commemorate the process from death to life, but throughout all the worship services, we are Easter people. 28-29

Amen. . . . the process from death to life . . . that's what makes Easter so joyous. Ramshaw really nails it, explaining better than I ever could the importance of Holy Week, as opposed to a Happy Clappy Easter entirely divorced from the actual passion. I know that I will never convince 90-95% of those who identify as Christians of this; one of the more difficult aspects of ministry is that the cultural aspects of the Christian year far outweigh any spiritual content or desire for growth in a genuine Christian walk--spiritual growth, emotional growth, intellectual growth, an increase in understanding and experience, all of that--and most people just want to come on Easter morning because they get to dress up and be happy and convince themselves that the content of Easter is designed to make them happy and give them a chance to eat ham. It's discouraging, but I suppose that is the delicate balance of ministry: continuing to share the Good News while knowing that most people don't want to be penetrated by anything new or more profound than what they already understand.

Definitely a keeper, helpful to me if not to anyone else!

[E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last spring a sudden, last minute change in our Holy Week plans resulted in some upset feelings on the part of a few congregants. Frankly, I have struggled with Holy Week here at First Central where (until the last couple of years) there was reluctance to experience Good Friday and the Maundy Thursday services never have quite gelled.

The resulting conversations made us realize how many different expectations there are (based upon a wide variety of previous experiences and theological, spiritual, and psychological needs) for what worship will entail that week. So, our Worship Ministry set out on a project of studying the issue in order to gain a better perspective and hopefully before next year arrive at a clearer since of what this church wants to do for Holy Week.

Note: in my conversations with other clergy I have learned that many of them also experience a lack alignment between what their training teaches them should happen and what their congregants actually want, expect, and will participate in.

This handy little book was recommended by a Lutheran minister friend. This gives a good explanation of the basic aims of liturgical renewal and some helpful comments on the various services one might hold. It lacked a little of what I am still hoping for on the practical question of how to reconcile what people want with with the tradition recommends.