Easter Vigil Photos

In the gathering darkness on Holy Saturday, we kindled new fire and went into the church to retell sacred stories by candle light. We also renewed our baptismal covenant via candlelight, before moving into the light as we began our Easter worship with the Queen of Feasts, the Great Vigil of Easter.

Maundy Thursday Photos

"After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, 'Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them....I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.'"

~Jesus in the Maundy Thursday reading from John 13

Palm Sunday Photos

Holy Week began today with our Palm Sunday worship. The incense couldn't quite keep the gnats at bay, but we braved the bugs to start our worship outdoors. Retired Bishop Henry Louttit and his wife Jan joined us for worship. The sermon is online with other recent sermons at Our sermon page. Worship continues this week with services each night at 7 p.m. with the sole exception being the Easter Vigil which starts Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Come journey with us through Holy Week.

The whole earth keeps silence

Something strange is happening - there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

This is taken from an anonymous writer of the early church. It's a reflection for this holy day of waiting when Jesus was in the tomb and his disciples felt all was lost. The full text of the brief sermon is online here: A Homily for Holy Saturday

The Easter Vigil
Easter begins tonight at 7 p.m. with the Great Vigil of Easter when we will light the new fire, retell stories of our faith by candlelight and then enter into the joy of Easter.

Easter
Tomorrow, we will worship at 6:30 and 10 a.m. with Bishop Louttit celebrating and preaching. Easter egg hunts and a covered dish lunch will follow the 10 a.m. service.

We preach Christ crucified

The Rev. Patrick Augustine writes that "the Cross is crucial and the heart of the Christian faith" but that this has not always been easily accepted:

From the pages of history we learn that as the church grew, so did controversy around the cross. In the ancient world people could accept new religions and new teachers quite easily. Jesus as teacher was attractive to many. But the cross was continually an enormous barrier to the acceptance of Christianity, and the first Christians knew it. The cross was offensive in its own right because crucifixion was a penalty levied out to only the most evil and wretched of men. How then can that humiliating, dishonorable death of Jesus on a cross be the event that brings salvation for the world? One would have to be a fool to believe that.

Yet that is precisely what the gospel declares. The fundamental theological point is that if the cross itself is in fact God's saving event, all human standards of evaluation are overturned. The outlandish message baffled Jews and Greeks. They were eminently reasonable by their own standards in asking for evidence of a more credible sort, either empirical demonstration of power ("signs") or rationally persuasive argumentation ("wisdom"). The Messiah should be for the Jews a man of power, or the Christ for the Greeks a wise teacher. But no! God has invalidated all apparently reasonable criteria.

This was a major stumbling block, and seemed foolishness in the eyes of the world for church to invite people to believe in Christ crucified. But the fact of the matter is that they dared to proclaim "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15: 3). In the New Testament and the teaching of the early church, there emerges a dominant theme of Christus Victor, Christ the Victor. In his life, in his death, and in his resurrection Jesus finally and utterly defeated the evil demonic powers whose aim was to keep humanity permanently depressed and separated from its creator. The Gospel declares that "God so loved the world" that the work of salvation, the supreme proof of God's love, began at the Incarnation, and was gloriously completed when Jesus said on the cross, "It is finished." He is "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29)." On the cross it finally came about the hour of his glory, so that even a pagan soldier who earlier had mocked him looking at the face of the crucified finally recognized the truth, saying, "Truly this man was the Son of God" (Mk. 15: 39 b)

The truth about Christ crucified needs to be declared to the world without shame and hesitation. Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey says, "In our Western church we have lost the dimension of radical discipleship to identify with Christ in the suffering and pain of the humanity. We have replaced it with a following of Jesus which is virtually cost-less. Indeed, some evangelists are guilty of going to the other extreme of offering the carrot that 'if you accept Jesus, he will solve your problems, help you find a good job, husband, wife, peace, contentment, etc.' The motive behind this may be admirable -- it is true, after all, that the presence of the Lord is healing -- but the result is a 'filleted' Christianity, with sacrifice removed."

To proclaim "Christ Crucified" is not a fancy fashionable statement. It is a risky, costly, demanding and sometimes dangerous business. Your life and my life are ultimately built on faith that goes beyond mere belief in prosperity theology. It is a faith that dares run the risk in the killing fields of Carthage and Sudan. It is a faith which reaches out to touch with the healing hands of the Crucified the dying in the gutters of Calcutta. The 14th century theologian Thomas a Kempis said, "Jesus now has many lovers of his heavenly Kingdom, but few bearer of his cross."

It is my sincere prayer as we come to the end of the Lenten season that we may not rush too hastily to the empty tomb to raise our songs of Alleluia! -- of Easter joy -- for we know the risen Lord only through Christ and him crucified. Here at the cross is the real power of God made available for our forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with our creator who created us in his own image. Stay awhile; here is the axis mundi for the salvation of humanity.

The full text of his reflection is online here: We preach Christ crucified

Note:
Our Good Friday liturgy is at 12 noon and 7 p.m.
Stations of the Cross will be at 1 p.m.

Cotemporary Stations of the Cross

Trinity Wall Street has created the Stations of the Cross online to be unvelied today using black and white photos of parishioners playing the parts taken around Manhattan. It is online here: Trinity Stations

Palm Sunday Photos

The Rest of the Easter Photos

All of the Easter photos we now have on hand are online here: King of Peace at Flickr.

If you have photos to share, please email them to frank[at]kingofpeace[dot]org.

Easter Vigil in Photos and Video

Here are video (above) and photos (below) of Saturday's Great Vigil of Easter at King of Peace.

Good Friday Evening Service

The Good Friday Evening liturgy was held at Christ Episcopal Church in St. Marys as a combined worship service for Christ Church and King of Peace. Above June, from King of Peace, reads for the service.


Father Dick Casto of Christ Church leads worship.


Our Pastoral resident, Jay Weldon, preached for both the noon and 7 p.m. services.


Father Daudi Ndahana, visiting with us this Easter (see below), leads prayers.

The Easter Vigil
The Easter Vigil, the Queen of Feasts for Christians, begins at 7 p.m. This is the Christian Passover in which we mark Jesus' crossing over from death to life. This was once the high point of the church year. Today, it remains the coolest worship service of the year, though attendance is less in most every church that holds one as the main service for Easter the next day is the bigger draw for crowds.

Maundy Thursday in Photos