Mid-Week Message - April 1 (Holy Week Edition)

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you!

We are now in the middle of Holy Week.  Jesus entered Jerusalem on Sunday, riding a donkey and accompanied by people waving branches that they cut from nearby trees, as they shouted Hosanna!  The word "hosanna" literally means "save us" - the shouts of the crowd were not shouts of praise, but were a literal cry for mercy.  "Save us, Son of David!"  On Sunday, I spoke about how this story calls us to make a choice - do we choose the Prince of Peace to save us, or do we turn to the Power of Empire for our salvation?  ("Empire" in the story means the literal Roman Empire; but "empire" as a concept includes all of the forces that hold widespread power. "Empire" would encompass forces like racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, alongside people, institutions, and corporations who hold power in our world.  To draw on a recent and very visual example, look at the people that Donald Trump surrounded himself with at his inauguration last year, and you have a picture of Empire.)

After Jesus entered Jerusalem, his week unfolds slightly differently depending on which gospel you are reading.  Mark probably gives us the most clear time stamps.  According to Mark:

On Sunday night, after the parade, Jesus went into the temple in Jerusalem, looked around (and maybe had a quiet moment of prayer), then went to find his friends for the night.

On Monday ("on the following day") Jesus went back to the temple, drove out the money changers, and generally antagonized the religious leaders.

On Tuesday, Jesus went back to the temple again, and this time engaged the religious leaders in debate.  He tells a number of pointed parables that expose the hypocrisy of the leaders, and answers a series of questions designed to trick him.  (This is where we get the famous double love commandment - the most important commandment is to love God with our whole being; and the second is like it, to love our neighbours as ourselves.) There is also a whole chapter of apocalyptic teaching that happens on the Tuesday of Holy Week, all about wars and rumours of wars.

When we come to Wednesday, Jesus and his disciples are staying at the home of Simon, and a woman comes in and anoints his head with expensive perfume. (This is one of the stories where the details differ in each of the gospels in terms of who is doing the anointing, what body part of Jesus is anointed, and when in the story of Jesus's life this happens.) On Wednesday night, Judas leaves the rest of the disciples and goes to the religious leaders to betray Jesus.

Thursday is the first day of the Passover, the festival when our Jewish cousins remember their deliverance from slavery in Egypt, when the angel of death "passed over" their homes, sparing the lives of their firstborn sons, while the firstborn of the Egyptian families all died.  Jesus and his disciples gather in the upper room of a house to share the Passover meal, and again, the details differ from gospel to gospel. In Mark, that I am following right now, Jesus takes a loaf of bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to his friends saying, "Take; this is my body." And then he takes a cup of wine, gives thanks, and gives it to them saying, "This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many." You find a similar story in Matthew and Luke; but in John, instead of sharing the bread and the cup, Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and tells them that they are to love one another as he, Jesus, has loved them.

Thursday night, Jesus is arrested and taken to the palace of the high priest.  Through the night, Jesus is tortured, while outside the palace, Peter denies knowing him.

Friday morning, Jesus is put on trial, tortured, nailed to a cross, and then in the afternoon he dies.  In the evening, his body is taken down and is laid in a tomb while a small group of women watch.

Saturday is the Jewish sabbath, and so it is a day of silence.

And then Sunday morning, the women go to the tomb to anoint Jesus's body and they discover that there is no body in the tomb; and then what happens next in terms of encountering the risen Christ depends on which version of the story you are reading.  (Mark ends with the empty tomb, and terror and amazement from the women.)

It is quite a story that this week tells.  It is a story where we can find ourselves in different phases of our lives, whether we are suffering as if it is Good Friday, or if we are rejoicing in new beginnings like it is Easter; whether we are feeling betrayed as Judas betrayed Jesus, or if we are pushing back against oppression and empire like on Palm Sunday.

To me, the biggest message of Holy Week is one of hope.  (Which we were talking about at Bible Study this morning!)  No matter how awful things are, the story never ends on Good Friday.  When we go through periods in our life that are filled with pain and suffering, we can remind ourselves that no Good Friday lasts forever; and even when the silence of Holy Saturday seems to stretch on forever, we trust that something new and good will eventually emerge.  For we are an Easter People!

Moving on to announcements for this week:

• Holy Week Worship (hang on, 'cause this is a big one!). You can see the poster by clicking here, but for quick reference:

  Maundy Thursday (Apr. 2) - 6pm at Westfield, woven together with a catered meal (pay-what-you-can). No livestreaming for this service.

  Good Friday (Apr. 3) - 11am at Long Reach and on Facebook Live

  Easter Sunrise Service (Apr. 5) - 7am at Brundage Point River Centre. No livestreaming, but there will be a potluck breakfast back at Westfield following the short service. Dress for the weather, then put on an extra layer just to be safe!

  Easter Worship (Apr. 5) - 9:15 at Summerville, 11:15 at Westfield and Facebook Live, with communion at both services.

• Joel Crabbe's Birthday Party - a reminder that Martha is hosting a drop-in birthday party to celebrate Joel's 50th Birthday - Saturday April 4 between 2 and 4. Their address is 4 Carter's Point Road - no gifts please, but Joel is hoping to receive 50 birthday cards this year!

• Bible Study - continues on Wednesday mornings from 10-11:30. Everyone is invited!

• Financial and Office Administrator Position - with Elaine's forthcoming retirement, our Ministry and Personnel Committee has asked me to share the following announcement:  Two Rivers Pastoral Charge is seeking applicants to fill the position of Financial & Office Administrator.  The successful applicant must be able to begin work by April 20, 2026. Please email wuc@nb.sympatico.ca to request a Position Description or to submit your resume should you be interested in applying for the position.  The application deadline is April 12, 2026.

• Needs Assessment Survey - At our last Official Board meeting, the Official Board decided to embark on a Needs Assessment for the pastoral charge. We can guess at what you are all wanting from our church, but unless we ask you, our guesses remain speculation only! Bertis Sutton is taking the lead on collecting data, and he has created a short survey that we are inviting you to complete. There are a couple of ways that you can complete this survey - you can fill it in online (clicking here will take you to the survey), or paper copies will be available at each of our churches this weekend.  The survey will take you 7-10 minutes to complete, and asks questions about your participation in different aspects of church life, and how connected you feel with your church.  We are hoping to get as many responses as possible - from people who are in church every Sunday, to people who join us at Christmas and Easter, to people who used to be active but no longer are, to people who only join us once in a while online. No matter what your connection is with Two Rivers Pastoral Charge, we invite you to complete a survey some time between now and April 17!

• Paper Shredding Event - in case you take any time over the long weekend to sort through your papers (I'm hoping to do this on Monday afternoon, as I will be getting ready to file my tax return), a reminder that we are hosing a paper shredding event on Saturday May 23 from 9-1 in the parking lot at Westfield United. You can shred as many bags and boxes of paper as you want to get rid of, in exchange for a freewill offering to the church. (Thank you to Paige Danaher, Realtor, for sponsoring the cost of renting the industrial shredder.) Volunteers will be on-site to help you unload your vehicle, and you can watch your stuff being shredded on a screen on the side of the truck. For a list of what can be shredded and what can't be, you can click here. (Spoiler alert - the only thing on the "not" list is binders!)

Thank You Corner - my thank you this week goes out to the Westfield United Church Choir, for the concert last Thursday.  (As on Sunday mornings, it feels awkward to be thanking a group that I am part of.) Thank you to Bertis for your musical leadership, and thank you to all of the choir members for your commitment to making beautiful music. I especially appreciated hearing from the choir members their stories of why the different songs are important to them. Usually I am the only one who shares my faith into a microphone in church, so it was a delight to me to hear from all of the other choir members.  Thank you!

For a closing thought this week, I want to share a link to a video I watched earlier this week, titled "The Real Reasons Why People Become Atheists" - it is presented from the perspective of a scholar of religion (ie a non-sectarian point of view, rather than someone who is trying to either persuade people to believe or persuade people to be atheists). That being said, I think that there is a lot of food for thought for churches in the data that he presents. You can watch the video by clicking here. It is about 15 minutes long.

And with that, I'll end this week's newsletter. I'm sure that I will be seeing many of you over the next several days as we complete this year's Holy Week journey together.

Blessings to you and yours, today and always! Kate.

Rev. Kate Jones Two Rivers Pastoral Charge (506) 757-2201 (office) (506) 343-1307 (mobile) www.tworiverspastoralcharge.com

Pronouns:  she/her/hers

"Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?" Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: "You must love your neighbour as you love yourself." (Matthew 22:36-39)