Holy Hell Week and Low Sunday

It is Tuesday of Holy Week. Get some rest now for the marathon of worship services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I remember feeling so exhausted by the end of the Easter worship I began to refer to the week as holy hell week. There was generally a minimum of three worship services to prepare and as many homilies or sermons to be written and delivered. One community in which I served had an early morning breakfast each day of Holy Week, which meant that five of the ministers had one more presentation to prepare for the breakfast.

In another congregation in which I served there were three deaths in the congregation during Holy Week, including the death of an infant. I had never had the experience of trying to minister to a family in such a circumstance. That truly was one holy hell week.

How do we bring a new word during this annual drama? The script never changes. Everybody in the pews has a minimal working knowledge of the four acts or movements of the Holy Week octave. Yet, each year we work hard to make it all fresh and deeply soul touching so it crescendos into the Easter acclamation “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”

Bruce Reyes Chow postulated, in 2011, that we should not make such a big deal out of Easter in his blog titled, Why Easter Worship Service Should Be Nothing Special. It is clear to see why the Sunday after Easter is typically called “Low Sunday.” The preacher takes the Sunday off to recuperate from the physical and spiritual exhaustion. The fanfare and exuberance of the musicians is spent. The crowd has dispersed. The faithful few are the only ones in attendance. Compared to the week before, the whole worship experience feels flat, but does it need to be?

Isn’t every Sunday an Easter Sunday? Isn’t each Sunday called The Lord’s Day? Aren’t we in the liturgical season of Eastertide? What if each Sunday we began with the call and response, “Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” What if worship began with strong, lively, rafter shaking music? What if preachers did not take the Sunday off? What if our worship was a startling as was Jesus’ appearances to the disciples?

Preachers, musicians, worshippers maybe we need to tone down Easter Sunday and amp up the Sundays after Easter.