Holy Week at Austin Seminary

Triduum: The Great Three Days

April 6 at 11:10 a.m.

Maundy Thursday Worship

PREACHER

Dr David Jensen, Professor in the The Clarence N. and Betty B. Frierson

Distinguished Chair of Reformed Theology

April 7 at 11:10 a.m.

Good Friday Worship

April 8 at 8:30 p.m.

The Paschal Vigil

PREACHER

The Reverend Bobbi Kaye Jones (MDiv’80), Professor in The Louis H. and Katherine S. Zbinden Distinguished Chair in Pastoral Ministry and Leadership

AustinSeminary.edu/Livestream

Holy Week at Austin Seminary unfolds with anticipation. For months a core group of students have been preparing to traditio, to hand down the traditions of Holy Week. Other students will join their work to pass along the traditions of what Christians have done for thousands of years: the service for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Saturday evening Great Vigil of Easter. And they will pass along how these things are done on the campus of Austin Seminary.

Early on the students learn that though we gather for corporate worship on each of these days, the service itself is actually one service that extends over three days. Maundy Thursday ends but there is no Benediction, Good Friday begins but there is no Call to Worship, Good Friday ends … and again the service continues the next day with the final part of this one, long, three-day service: the Great Vigil of Easter. Students learn to pronounce the older name for these great three days, the Triduum. Some of our students have not experienced the central actions of this three-day service and most of them have never been to an Easter Vigil. The Triduum at Austin Seminary is a learning experience for our students, a model for what can be done in local congregations, yet always, I pray, is worship of the living God!

On Maundy Thursday we begin with a grander-than-usual Confession of Sin and Assurance of Pardon, a vestige from earlier centuries when penitents stayed away from church for forty days and only returned at the end of Lent. Now Lent ends and we enter the Great

Three Days. We listen to the scripture readings appointed for this day. We are commanded to love one another, we wash feet, and we share Christ’s covenant meal. At the end of this day’s worship, Shelton Chapel is stripped of paraments, communion vessels are removed from the table, ministers remove their stoles, candles are extinguished, and all crosses are shrouded. One tradition of the church is that of a lone voice chanting Psalm 22 during the stripping of the church; these moments foreshadow Christ’s own passion.

On Good Friday, gathered now in the stark bareness of our chapel, we hear the passion account from the gospel according to John, another old tradition. We stand together when the reader proclaims, “Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). We remain standing until the reading is finished. We then pray the long bidding prayer of Good Friday, a prayer of intercession for all manner of people and situations. Then it is time to turn and face the large wooden cross as it is carried down the center aisle; three times we announce that the cross bears the salvation of the world. This cross bears our sins and the sins that we perpetuate in our time. As we face the cross, we begin to sing a simple refrain between the stanzas of an old song of the church, the Solemn Reproaches. Those who wish come forward to kneel at the foot of the cross which now rests against the table. On this most solemn day we are honest about our death-dealing ways. We sit with our sorrows. We depart in silence, again without a Benediction.

Later that afternoon, with as little small-talk as possible (since it is the day of great silence), student volunteers gather to make the final preparations for the last day of the Triduum. The Great Vigil of Easter, the Paschal Vigil, is a stational service, meaning we will be people on the move. We will move from the station (place) for the Service of Light to the station for the Service of Readings and then to the station for the Service of Baptism and the Service of Holy Communion. Each station needs preparations including laying a fire, arranging congregational and choir seating, positioning candle stands, collecting rosemary for asperges, the sprinkling (ok, joyful dousing!) at the renewal of our baptism, and of course setting the bread and the cup for the Feast, the Lord’s Supper.

Finally, it is Saturday. Dusk approaches, readers and musicians and other leaders gather, people arrive. Nightfall envelops the campus, and it is time. The Presider gathers us on the open green between the chapel, library, and Atrium, and welcomes us to this most holy night, the night of our passover in Christ, our passover from death to life, for “Christ (is) our Passover … let us keep the feast!” (I Cor. 5:8).

With that welcome it is time for a student to light the Great Fire. At the kindling of this new fire, we begin to tell the story—through symbol and song, readings and movement—of all things being made new in Jesus Christ. The new Paschal Candle is lighted from the new fire and marked with the Alpha and Omega, the year, and then with five nails as Christ’s wounds. We now sing a different verse three times, thanking God for the light of Christ, and we follow that pillar of fire, making our way to the Vickery Atrium for the Service of Readings. We each light our hand-held candle and listen as a cantor sings the

ancient Exultet, the Easter Proclamation that extols this night of nights. We settle in for the original Lessons and Carols: twelve readings, stories of faith, interspersed with song. Finally, at the end of the twelfth reading we rise and move, singing and making our ascent to the Station of Baptism at the chapel. On this night we will remember God’s claim on us and our freedom in Christ: we pray, sing again, and welcome the splash of remembrance of the waters of salvation!

Then it is time for the Epistle and the Gospel readings. The preacher has more than enough food for the night’s sermon—the Vigil is an experience of an abundance of biblical images for deliverance and redemption. We are tired but enrapt, and we listen. We make our intercessions. We share the peace of the Crucified-Risen One with one another. And then we make our tableprayer, our Great Prayer of Thanksgiving. And we keep the Feast. After a final song we have come, at last, to the Benediction at the end of these Great Three Days. Something becomes clear in that late hour: if we keep the Feast, the Feast will keep us. We move to Stott’s Hall and break the fast with an abundance of rich foods and festive drink.

The students are amazing. They work with the smallest parts and the grandest whole of this service. They learn planning and preparation and stagehand-like attention to the details. But above all I trust that they worship throughout these most holy days and are renewed in God’s life for the sake of the world.

God has brought from death to life: let us keep the Feast!

– Written by Professor Jennifer L. Lord

The Reverend Dr. Jennifer L. Lord is the Dorothy B. Vickery Professor of Homiletics and Liturgical Studies. She has served on the Austin Seminary faculty since 2005 and has had a primary role in directing the Three Great Days service at the Seminary.

Steeped in the ritual language of the church, she served as an editorial advisory board member and consultant for the revision of the PC(USA) Book of Common Worship. She researches and presents on pilgrimage, liminality studies, and women’s voice in preaching and liturgical leadership. She has walked over 1500 miles in three countries on the network of trails that are the Camino—the Compostela, the Way of St. James —and these travels undergird her work in pilgrimage and liminality studies. Current book projects include:

Pilgrimage: A Lenten Devotional Professor Lord is passionate about sharing with her students the rich history and liturgies of the church so that they may share them in their own ministries when they leave this place.