Many who have attended Maundy Thursday evening worship services during Holy Week, at Hope Church or elsewhere, are accustomed to a “Tenebrae” service as the liturgical form of the service. The Tenebrae pattern is a meaningful liturgy that will continue to be used at Hope Church, but this year our Maundy Thursday worship will have a different pattern.
A Tenebrae service typically follows a pattern of scripture readings that progress through the passion of Jesus toward his crucifixion, with candles extinguished one by one until only the light of the Christ candle remains. The theme for this year’s Maundy Thursday service, “Light in Deepest Night,” may sound like just such a Tenebrae pattern, but it follows a different form. The “Light in Deepest Night” liturgy is drawn from the writings of Christian mystic Julian of Norwich, who lived and wrote in fourteenth-century Britain. Julian’s works have blessed generations, as she uses evocative images of faith, God, and life, expressing a vison of all things held in God’s love and grace. Through choral settings, scripture, songs, prayer and reflection, the “Light in Deepest Night” liturgy draws us to hear these themes of God’s all-encompassing love and grace in the passion story of Jesus Christ.
This is a year at Hope Church when our Palm Sunday worship takes us through the Scripture texts of Holy Week, from the triumphal entry to Jerusalem to the agony of the cross. We do this through the creative reading “Worship for the Way of the Cross” which has been used a number of times at Hope Church, most recently in 2017. Having experienced the Holy Week story together on Palm Sunday, the “Light in Deepest Night” liturgy will be an opportunity to bring whatever “deepest night” is present in our lives and world before the Light of God which cannot be extinguished. All are invited to join in worship together for Maundy Thursday, as a faithful voice from our past nurtures us on our Holy Week journey.
