HOLY WEEK AT HOME
In an act of faith and solidarity, we are called to spend Holy Week without the usual presence of one another. Each day throughout this week, though, we can continue to come together in spirit with these daily devotionals as we are called to gather, reflect, pray, and act.As always, reach out! To each other, to your neighbors and friends. Gather your family around the table for a time of reflection or join with others on FaceTime or Zoom to do the same. Allow this experience to transform you in Christ and embolden you to express the love of God in new ways in this new time. While we are, in fact, all in this together, we specifically come together in manifest spirit to gather, reflect, pray, and act, as led by Christ.
GATHER
Have a member of your household lead or, if alone, read it as a silent meditation. If you connect via social media, have two or three people share the reading.
ALL: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sins against them, and has commissioned us with the message of reconciliation.
LEADER: Praise the Lord.
ALL: The Lord’s name be praised.
REFLECT
Read the scripture below as a silent meditation, have a member of your household read aloud, or have two or three people share the reading.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.
Acts 2:42-45 NIV
PRAY
Breaking bread together:
As Jesus gathered for the Passover meal, the night before he was handed over to the Roman authorities, he was with friends and family breaking bread and sharing their lives. Meals are very important in the Bible. In fact, there are many stories and passages throughout the Bible that talk about people sitting down to break bread together and, as in the case of Zacchaeus, it was an honor to have Jesus breaking bread with you. It was more than just eating a meal, it was taking a break from the day, taking a break from whatever was occupying them to spend time together, truly listening to one another. This is part of a reason we have Second Sunday Lunches: we sit together and share a meal as a family.
This time of shelter-in-place has given us time with the people we live with and a chance pause and connect with them. As we begin to come out of this pandemic, I pray that we start reaching out to others in the church to sit and break bread together. I don’t think there are ever coincidences in the Bible; everything Jesus did led up to the night of Passover. That was a time to look back over where the Lord had brought them from and a time to break bread together. The Lord is moving and will be bringing us out of this. May we find time to break bread together, to remember where we came from and who we are as a community.
Pray that the Lord blesses us in the times that we are able to break bread together, whether now in our homes or in the future as a community. Pray that we all be nourished during this time- physically, mentally, and, especially, spiritually. Pray that we continue to find ways to connect with one another and the whole body of Christ.
ACT
Consider these ideas to extend acts of service, mercy, or grace to those around you and for your own well-being.
Reach out to someone from church that you've been missing or someone you had been meaning to get to know better. Let them know you've been thinking of them and, while it might be too early to make plans yet, you can look forward to the opportunity to break bread together in the future! Or get creative and schedule a FaceTime coffee date or something in the meantime. Click here to look up someone in the Member Directory.
Join us for the virtual Maundy Thursday service tonight at 7:00 p.m. It's a communion service, so have your crackers or bread and juice or wine ready.
Join the Virtual Easter Egg Hunt with a photo submission! Take time to read the Easter story then post a picture that includes an Easter egg along with what Easter means to you and the hashtag #onebasket2020 (and a second tag of #2ndpc) before noon on Saturday. Download an egg coloring sheet here if you’d like.
You can officially search for eggs by the hashtags after noon on Saturday. You can look through the photos that have already been submitted by searching the #onebasket2020 hashtag on Facebook.
NOTE: Make sure we can see your posts! An individual Facebook posts can be set to public. On Instagram, your account must be public for us to see your photo. And, as always, use discretion on social media and supervise your children as you would with any other time on the internet.
