Growing up Episcopalian, and especially during my boarding school years in New York, we observed Lent like no other place I’d ever been, before or since. The most noticeable change was in our cassocks, which for most of the year were bright red in color, but switched to black for the six-and-a-half weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter (Resurrection) Sunday. But the changes that still stand out to me all these years (and now decades) later are what took place in the “school” portion of our daily lives. Our headmaster took away the sugar bowls from each of the meal tables (normally each table was decked with sugar bowls along with salt and pepper shakers). But we also each were encouraged to choose to give something up additional for Lent, to know what it was to sacrifice something we liked. (The idea was that it would then lead us to spend more time with God, but either that part wasn’t communicated very well, or even if it was, we were all middle-school boys who simply didn’t understand.) My first year there, I sacrificed asking for large portions of food, including food that I liked, settling for medium or small portions only. Maybe that wasn’t the best thing for a growing boy, as I didn’t do that again in any of the subsequent years. I did voluntarily give things up in the latter years, but I don’t recall anymore what those things might have been.
Additionally, Ash Wednesday and Holy Week were momentous occasions.
In addition to the charcoal markings in the shape of the crucifix on our
foreheads for the former, and a revamped school schedule for the latter to accommodate
all the services we had to do (plus one year, we did a school-wide project taking
Jesus’s trial into the modern courtroom and going through the modern trial
motions including rendering a verdict; I think another year we did a skit), the church services themselves, including the music we sang, were some of the most powerful and reverent stuff I have ever sung in my life. Ash Wednesday and Wednesday of Holy Week showcased Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere Mei, a piece set in Latin to the text of Psalm 51 and written exclusively for the Vatican choir but transcribed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Felix Mendelssohn (with some bloopers along the way - it’s a really fascinating story on its own; you should check it out here). I actually ended up listening to it daily (sometimes multiple times per day) during the first week of Lent this year!
And that was just the two Wednesdays. The Maundy Thursday service included what felt like a typical (but of course, subdued) Sunday morning Eucharist structure. Obviously the Biblical readings and lyrics for the hymns, Psalm chants, and anthems reflected the theme of the Last Supper. (I’m trying to remember if St. Thomas also did foot-washing, or if that was St. Luke's only.) But the key moment took place at the end of the service. After communion, the senior pastor (“rector” in Episcopal terms) took some of the reused palms from the previous Sunday’s “Palm Sunday” service, pour vinegar (and maybe oil?) on the altar, and began scrubbing the altar with the palms and the liquid that was poured on top. I forget what else was going on (were we singing a hymn or an anthem at the time?) but this was so impeccably coordinated, for the choir to finish whatever we were doing, and then the senior pastor to look toward us and the congregation, and throw down the palms with the vinegar mixture onto the floor. The way this was choregraphed was unmistakable. Everyone could see when it happened. Immediately, the lights were turned off, and unlike the previous evening when the choir simply walked out in an aimless manner, we ran out (now that I’m recalling this, this was to simulate Jesus’s disciples deserting Him upon His arrest).
St Thomas’s Good Friday service was understandably dark. Typical service fare included intoning Jesus’s passion, crucifixion, death, and burial, essentially from late Thursday night (right after the Last Supper) all the way to late Friday evening (when Joseph of Arimathea took His body to be buried), and singing The Reproaches by Tomas Luis di Vittoria, among a few other things. No pipe organ was to be used at all. I know we sang a few other things as well, including a hymn or two (we had to, right?), but I mostly remember the quiet and darkness, after the drama of the Wednesday and Thursday services.
Holy Saturday’s Easter Vigil service brought back the bright red cassocks and was set up as a reversal of the services from Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday: instead of starting bright and loud and getting quieter and quieter, this service started in almost utter darkness and then got gradually brighter and louder. Musically we got a foretaste of what Sunday would bring, and it was certainly a celebratory service, but intentionally set up as a prequel more than anything, because...
Easter (Resurrection) Sunday was clearly the main event. St. Thomas Church’s music department typically hired brass performers to accompany the organ for the main event, which was the 11 AM service (which was the second of two morning Eucharist services; the first service took place at 8 AM where we did all the same music but without the brass performers). When I was there, standard fare included Dr. Gerre Hancock’s Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei), based on the Episcopal hymn tune of St. Magnus, as well as other celebratory hymns and anthems.
Finally, one last service before the choirboys got to go home for a week or two (depending on how late Resurrection Sunday was) was an Evensong (evening worship) in the late afternoon. Benjamin Britten’s “Rejoice in the Lamb” was the piece de resistance anthem. (I now forget what other pieces/settings were done for that service.) Although the 11 AM service was the truly main event (and the type of service where those who only go to church twice a year would attend), the Evensong service was kind of like the main event for the choir, as the service where we would tend to do our hardest pieces, one final hump before we finally got to take our weekly “Sabbath” rest (we almost never rehearsed on Mondays), or in this particular case, before we would get to go home and spend time with our families and friends away from school. I hope to do another blog post eventually about my take on Sunday evening worship in relation to other services (especially in how it informs and pertains to one of my missions/desires musically now). But for the purpose of this blog post, of all the Sunday evening worship services we did through the year, from September through the end of May, Resurrection Sunday Evensong was like the cream of the crop of all those services.
The whole point of me blogging about this at all is to state this: I had gotten so used to the extra rigor of Lent, plus the singularity of our focus by Holy Week that, once we got through to Easter (and after a little break at home), we returned to life as it was before Ash Wednesday. It was like nothing had changed. It’s possible I may have asked myself the question, “well then, what’s the point of Lent?” But I seem to recall a far more significant reaction: I didn’t like Easter. Not because of the joy or the meaning or the music – I absolutely enjoyed those things! – but because it meant an end to the sacrifice. We got our sugar bowls back. Why? If the purpose for removing them was for our good anyway (we were, after all, middle school boys who surely didn’t need more sugar!), why not keep it that way?
[Our headmaster also had a weird love/hate relationship with
ketchup, where he sometimes allowed it but, far more often, got angry at any
student who added ketchup to their meal (and at any faculty or staff member who
allowed it) at random odd moments that he didn’t approve of it. My solution
would be to at least be consistent and ban ketchup altogether if it was going
to be that problematic! But I digress…]
When I was a child, I did actually try to proselytize my
childhood best friend by telling him about Jesus’s passion, and crucifixion (I
don’t know if I ever got to the resurrection part… oops). Then as young adults,
post-college (but before I returned to Chicago and began attending the
Vineyard), we did have a season of discussions about life and what the truth about
it really is. We both ended up trying to proselytize each other with our
respective understandings. The conversations weren’t contentious; they actually
were (to my recollection) quite interesting, if not all that fruitful. If
anything, it revealed to me what my boldness was about my faith (or whatever my
faith happened to be) when I wasn’t “under the gun” to speak. (By contrast, I
was terrified when going on street ministry events in my first year or two at
the Vineyard just a year later, because not only were these way out of my
comfort zone, but there was an expectation to preach (something like 30 seconds’
worth of preaching, not 15 minutes!) as well as to pray.)
The point is, I’ve known about (and loved) the retelling of Jesus’s
passion, crucifixion, and resurrection. It’s the pinnacle of the Christian
faith, particularly His resurrection. But as I march my way through the New
Testament, it is clear that things would never go back to the way they were
before He came, let alone died and rose again. The very early church of
Apostles Paul, Peter, and the rest in fact argued against circumcision!
1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. 4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
Specifically, I want to highlight this one verse:
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
The point is, not only did Jesus’s death and resurrection
change everything, but we also should not be trying to “go back to the way
things were” before. And that’s really what Easter seemed to be about: “yay!
Jesus is back from the dead” (which is excellent) but also: “now we can stop
fasting and disciplining ourselves and celebrate” (which in my opinion is not
excellent, at least not this side of heaven). There will indeed be a feast in
heaven, and it is there where we can celebrate, because those of us who make it
there will be in a place with no sin, we will have been washed from our sins,
and we will have new resurrection bodies. That is the time to celebrate. But
while we are here on earth, in a world full of sin, and where we do not yet
have resurrection bodies, we still have to devote ourselves to Jesus and to
fight against the flesh (those of us who have truly received Jesus Christ as
our King and Savior have been washed clean, but we still have the flesh to
contend with, along with the world and the devil himself):
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
We still have to contend with our flesh because:
For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
But the good news is:
And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
One of the rare times I truly fasted outside of the
designated Lenten season was in June 2019 when my former church was preparing
to welcome its new senior pastor (who had been selected but would still undergo
a trial period before being officially voted/confirmed by the congregation). I
had set aside one day per week to actually fast from food (a challenge because
I had set it up to not eat until sundown, and June is the month with the latest
sunsets), but I had also fasted from other internet use aside from what was
necessary for work and for building up my faith during this fast (which
included blogging every day!). Anyway, toward the end of the month I had gone
out to lunch with a few new friends I had made that year who had completely
embraced the fasting and prayer that we had done together as a church, and at this
lunch they had commented about continuing the fast even after the designated
time was over. I really liked the idea of it, because it showed how much better
my life was without the things I had set aside for the purpose of growing
closer to God (and especially repenting, since that was the year almost everything
I had built up in my life over the last seven years had come crashing down). I
even entertained the idea of it. On my own discipline, continuing this fast
beyond the designated end date didn’t last long, although it was effective
enough while I had been doing it to spring real change in me.
I share this story because, just like the times when I was a
child and Easter (Resurrection) Sunday meant getting our sugar bowls back and
being able to consume once again the thing(s) I had set aside, returning the
things back in my life hindered whatever further growth that could have
happened. Sometimes the best fast is to keep it through the rest of our natural
lives until the date we pass away. If we truly are saved and have Jesus in our
hearts, then we can join Him at the feast in heaven, and only then would it
seem right to break that fast.
Having said all this, that’s a challenge for me. I’ll
definitely need Jesus’s strength to be able to pull that off.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.