'Easter is everything' Area clergy will share messages of God's love, resurrection

Apr. 9—For Christians, Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, the time before Easter commemorating the last days of Jesus Christ's life.

According to Scripture, on Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem and was greeted by people who gave him a hero's welcome during the Jewish Passover celebration.

The crowd carried palm branches, which are a symbol of joy and victory, and spread them throughout the streets.

The Last Supper

Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, the Thursday after Palm Sunday, commemorates the Last Supper, when Jesus shared the Passover meal with his disciples on the night before he was crucified.

The word "maundy" is derived from the Latin word "mandatum," meaning a commandment, and refers to the commands Jesus gave his disciples at the Last Supper.

On Good Friday, Christians commemorate the passion of Christ, or his suffering and death on the cross.

Holy Saturday is the last day of Holy Week and ends the Lenten season. It commemorates when Jesus' body was in the tomb after his death.

As Christians prepare for Easter, some may attend an Easter vigil service.

The resurrection

On Easter Sunday, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Christians believe that Jesus came back to life, or was raised from the dead, three days after his crucifixion.

The Rev. Eric Raygor, pastor of Somerset Grace United Methodist Church, 320 Felgar Road, Somerset, said Holy Week is a time to remember the events of Jesus' life that changed the world.

"It's an opportunity for us to find some way where we can step into those events so we're not just remembering what's happened," he said.

"We're allowing those events to impact our lives."

'Celebratory service'

Raygor said the Palm Sunday service will include a distribution of palms.

"We make this more of a celebratory service than most of the other ones during the season of Lent, and we remember that Jesus was welcomed in, at least in that moment, and people had a glimpse of who he was and what he was there for," he said.

"They shouted 'Hosanna' in recognition that not only do we need saving, but here is the one who is willing and able to save us."

Raygor said a Holy Thursday service will be held at 7 p.m.

"The service takes two parts — we have a Maundy Thursday service and we emphasize the idea of the new commandment of loving one another as he has loved us, and we celebrate communion," he said.

"The second part is a tenebrae service, where we have a series of readings that takes us through the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus, and it's in darkness and candles are extinguished after each reading."

Last seven sayings

Raygor said on Good Friday, churches in the Somerset Area Ministerium will gather for a service at noon at First United Methodist Church, 149 W. Patriot St., Somerset. It will focus on the last seven sayings of Jesus from the scriptural story.

"On Good Friday, we are remembering that willing sacrifice that Jesus made, and it's remembering that his message was not received by the religious and political leaders of the day who conspired to kill him because his way of life was counter to theirs," he said.

"It reminds us of the need that we have for Jesus, for his death to take our sins, and the need we have for his resurrection, because we need a new life and renewal."

An outdoor Easter Sunday sunrise service will be held at 7 a.m. The main service will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m.

"Easter is everything," Raygor said.

"If not for Easter, there would be no Christianity. It would just be a philosophy.

"For us, it's the new life that's offered, and it begins when we place our lives into Christ's hands and we accept what he offers us."

New life

Raygor said his Easter message will focus on new life.

"We look forward to a life that goes on into eternity in his presence, and even as we recognize that part of our lives need to die on Good Friday, we recognize that Christ renews us and leads us into new life," Raygor said.

"I'll be using the example of what we have right in front of us, with the reality of death and the reality of the drudgery and dreariness of a life that hasn't been all what we've wanted for the past two years, but we can always hope that life is being renewed, even now."

The Rev. William Rosenbaum, pastor of St. Clement Roman Catholic Church, 114 Lindberg Ave., Upper Yoder Township, said Holy Week follows the final days and footsteps of Jesus.

"We follow as he walks to the cross of the crucifixion and then his resurrection on Easter Sunday, showing the miracle and powerfulness of God's love that someone who was dead can be brought back to life," he said.

"It's also the powerfulness of God's love that he offers us new life, to all who are believers and do their best in trying to follow Jesus."

On Palm Sunday, there will be a blessing of palms that will be distributed to those coming into church.

"This is a day to remind us of how, in our humanness, on that day people were very elated and uplifted by Jesus, and in a sense, they wanted him to be their king," Rosenbaum said.

"In our humanness, we realize that in a few days, they'll be crying out, 'Crucify him.' "

A Holy Thursday service will be held at 7 p.m.

Holy oils

"At the beginning of the service, we receive the holy oils that were blessed by the bishop — oil for the sick, oil of catechumens and sacred chrism," Rosenbaum said.

"After the homily, we will have the washing of the feet, reminding ourselves of the Mass of the Last Supper when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples."

On Good Friday, a liturgical commemoration of the Lord's passion and death will be held at 1 p.m.

Liturgical commemoration

"This is the service of the word, a service of the adoration of the cross and a communion service," Rosenbaum said.

"We enter church in silence because of the death of Jesus, and at the beginning, the priest and altar servers prostrate themselves and lay on the floor in front of the altar as a sign of our great sadness."

At 7:30 p.m., Shadow Stations of the Cross will be offered.

Rosenbaum said on Easter, Christians celebrate Jesus rising from the dead and his power over sin.

"We're celebrating the powerfulness of God's love and that God's love is more powerful than evil and death," Rosenbaum said.

"The message will be about Jesus rising from the dead and how that touches our lives, what it says to us and how that calls us to live our lives as Easter people, not just on Easter Sunday, but every day of our lives."

The Easter vigil Mass at St. Clement's will be celebrated at 8 p.m. Holy Saturday, and the Easter Sunday service will be held at 9:30 a.m.

Senior Pastor Jim Gay, of Greater Johnstown Christian Fellowship, 3429 Elton Road, Johnstown, said Holy Week recognizes the sacrifice of love of Jesus giving of himself on the cross.

"It's 'For God so loved that he gave his son,' so it's always that opportunity for us to think about that and what that means," he said.

Time for praise

Gay said his message on Palm Sunday will focus on praising the Lord.

"I'm going to praise the Lord in the midst of my situation or my circumstance, when times are good and when times are bad," he said.

"It's a time for us to let our inner faith be made audible, so open up your mouth and shout a praise because God is good and God is faithful all the time."

Easter production

As part of Holy Week, the church will present an Easter production "The Final 24 Hours" at 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday that will tell the story of Jesus' final hours.

"We really want to focus on his suffering, because in the midst of his suffering, we can receive our healing," Gay said.

"According to Scripture, the stripes that Jesus wore upon his back were for our healing."

A Holy Thursday healing service will be offered at 7 p.m.

"In the midst of our Easter production, we take time to have a healing service because even during this time, we remember that God still heals today because of what Jesus has done," Gay said.

"We will anoint with oil and we will pray the prayer of faith and it will make the sick well."

Good Friday services will be held at 3 and 7 p.m.

'To save mankind'

"It's where we recognize that Jesus died and he died simply to save mankind from their sins," Gay said.

"It is solemn and it is sad, but that sadness leads to gladness and joy because we know the story doesn't end there."

Gay said his Easter message will celebrate the power that's found in the resurrection.

"We believe that the power of the resurrection will keep us safe when there's harm, give us peace when there's strife, healing when there's sickness and strength when we're weak," he said.

"We believe in the power of the resurrection, because we believe in Jesus who is the resurrection and the life."

Easter Sunday services will be held at 8:30 and 10:30 a.m.

Senior pastor Jared Havener, of Trinity Presbyterian Church, 268 Hostetler Road, Johnstown, said throughout Lent the congregation has been celebrating the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

"We pause our ordinary preaching series to reflect on passages of Scripture that point us to the fact that Christ lived the life that we've failed to live, died the death that we deserved to die and rose victorious from the grave as our everlasting source of redemption," he said.

Jesus' life

Havener said the church does not hold special Palm Sunday or Holy Thursday services. Instead it focuses on Jesus' life at this time of the year.

"We've reflected on the resolved commitment of Jesus to do his father's will, so we looked at the garden of Gethsemane and remember that Jesus is God in flesh and a true man who had to do the will of God as a man in order to rescue us from our bondage to sin," he said.

"We will also reflect on Jesus' experience on the cross through the lens of Psalm 22, where you have Jesus' own description of his experience on Calvary."

An Easter service will be held at 10:45 a.m.

"We will rejoice together in the reality of Christ's resurrection and remember that it's our resurrection as well, because we are united to him by faith," Havener said.

"We focus on the fact that because Christ is risen from the dead, the power of sin is broken and death is defeated, and we look forward to being raised with him to live with God in a world made new. We declare that this is our resurrection hope."