Holy Week 2024

Holy Week will once again offer us the power of the story of God’s love for us.

Palm Sunday, March 24

8:30a & 10:45a (English), 10:45a (en español)

Hear the story of the entrance of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem to shouts of “Hosanna. Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Maundy Thursday, March 28

6:30p (English), 6:45p (en español)

Remember the Last Supper in the Upper Room, prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus’ arrest, and trial. This worship service ends with the meaningful “stripping of the altar” to remind us of the humiliation and suffering of our Savior.

Good Friday, March 29

Worship: 12p and 6:30p (English), and 6p (en español)

Hear the story of the crucifixion of Jesus along with the seven last words of Jesus from the cross. We will gather to remember and offer worship to the One who saves us from our sins. The sanctuary will be open with candlelight from 1-3 p.m. for those who desire a time of quiet prayer.

Good Friday Procession: We invite you to participate in our Latino Ministries’ Good Friday procession. We will start our procession from the three crosses in the memorial garden. We will lower the cross and the participants will be able to pass the cross to the people who will carry it on our trip to the tomb (Latino Sanctuary). In the sanctuary, we will, as always, have the experience of walking and experiencing how the beauty of the alfombras/carpets disappears.

Easter Sunday: The Day of Resurrection Joy

8:30a & 10:45a (English), 10:45a (en español)

The story of the power of God overcoming the power of death. The story of the power of love overcoming the power of death. The story of Jesus defeating the grave. It is our story. Come and see what God has done. Be reminded of the promise of God’s unimaginable love for you. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Preparing for the Beauty of Holy Week

While we just celebrated Ash Wednesday, preparations for Holy Week at Ascension are already underway. In the Latino Ministry, we have begun coloring sawdust to prepare our traditional alfombras for Good Friday. During Journey to the Cross, families began the first alfombra.

Some of you have asked me where all that large amount of sawdust comes from. Sawdust is not just from one place, last month, I had to visit Bliffert, Waukesha, Home Depot, Waukesha and Bliffert, Germantown. We have enough material to make all of the alfombras for this year. The sawdust that those stores collect is put in the trash, but for the month of February, they invite us to use and do wonders with material that is normally garbage. I showed them photographs of last year’s alfombras. They said, “Wow! Thank you for inviting us to be part in some way in this project!” Yes, everyone is invited to participate in some way in the alfombras during Holy Week.

In previous years, I have colored all the sawdust by myself. This year CRASH students were invited to experience the colorization of sawdust. The students really enjoyed it and learned a new skill. This was not only a time of work, but it was also a time for fellowship, sharing and continuing to learn about what Ascension is and what God is doing in our multicultural Christian community.

As we continue to walk this Lenten journey, let’s think about God’s call to us to pass the good news to others. In Holy week, we invite you to participate in our Good Friday procession. We will start our procession from the three crosses in the memorial garden. We will lower the cross and the participants will be able to pass the cross to the people who will carry it on our trip to the tomb (Latino Sanctuary). In the sanctuary, we will, as always, have the experience of walking and experiencing how the beauty of the carpets disappears.

The beauty of the savior living among us dies, but that is not the end. Three days later, beauty returns never to disappear from our lives. Jesus continues to reveal the beauty of the kingdom of heaven here on earth through us and others. We are invited to spread the message of the kingdom of God from where we are.

May God open your eyes this Lenten season to help you find the beauty of the kingdom of heaven in your lives.

Pastor Edwin

What About Easter

Easter has arrived and with it the end of the Lenten season. For this month, I would like to write about what Holy Week meant to me since my childhood, and how it has been changing through my life’s journey.

Holy Week for me in my childhood had only two important days. As you are reading this, I’m sure you are guessing that Easter Sunday is one of those two days, but let me tell you — no. The two days that were very important to me as a young Catholic boy in El Salvador were Palm Sunday and Good Friday. On Palm Sunday, attendance exceeded the capacity of the building. The capacity of the church was twice that of Ascension, but the worshippers that were last to arrive had to sit among the stones that were in the garden outside the church. On Good Friday, the streets filled with hundreds of parishioners accompanying the holy burial. For my family and most people that we knew, those were the only days we attended church throughout the year. Yes, yes, I know what you are thinking and you are wondering what about Easter?  I can’t tell you what an Easter service was like in those days because no one I knew attended church on Easter.

When I started going to the Lutheran church in my country, the celebration of Holy Week was a little different. The celebration of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday had the same level of energy as any Sunday of the year. There was nothing special about these days. I have not experienced Holy Week in El Salvador since 2017 and on that trip, our delegation returned home the day before Easter, so I don’t know if things have changed since moving to the U.S. ten years ago.

In my new life in the United States, the celebration of Holy Week is one of the things that impresses me in the Lutheran Church. Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, and Good Friday are all treated as high Holy Days, but the big difference occurs on Easter Sunday. On my first Easter Sunday, my wife told me, “This Sunday you should dress a little nicer than normal.” I was confused and asked her why. Her response was “Edwin, it is Easter.” My response, “So??” Finally, I listened to her and dressed a little nicer than most Sundays. To be honest, I thought that she was exaggerating. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the church, everyone was dressed in formal clothes for the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank goodness my in-laws had saved seats for us, because the congregation was nearly to the Hearth Room. I never expected a crowd on Easter Sunday. I was equally surprised after church ended, the conversations taking place in the narthex were about whose house people were going to be visiting for the day for their Easter dinner. I was so confused. I couldn’t understand why people were making such a big deal about this day. I didn’t understand why we were going to a dinner at my in-law’s house, but I enjoyed the party, even if I didn’t understand what ham was either.

Over the years, I began to see Holy Week in a new way. If we only gather for Good Friday to remember the suffering, but not on Easter to remember the resurrection, our Holy Week and our faith journey are incomplete.

This is true throughout the year, all of us will experience moments of anguish and pain, but in the end we have to remember that there is always new life. Our Lord, through his sufferings, death and resurrection has released you, me and all humanity. Joy is always coming. Easter Sunday is the most important holiday for Christians and should be celebrated in church, and with family and friends. Happy Easter!

Edwin Aparicio, Pastoral Intern

Holy Week 2020

Even in these days of the pandemic, we continue to mark the days of the journey of Jesus in life, in death, and in resurrection joy. Join with us as we worship in a new way, online (and in print in this newsletter).

Palm Sunday: “Hosanna in the highest!” will be our cry as we remember Jesus’ triumphant entry into the gates of the holy city. We will celebrate the beginning of this holy week with the reminder that our expectations and God’s expectations are not always exactly the same. Where the people want a powerful king, Jesus comes as a suffering servant riding a donkey. Through our online worship experience, we will be reminded of the coming of the promised Messiah – the chosen one of God. This worship will be posted on Palm Sunday morning.

Maundy Thursday: We will gather in the upper room with Jesus and the disciples to celebrate the Last Supper. This year, we will hear words of confession and forgiveness and be reminded of the powerful image of the Savior washing the feet of the disciples. As is tradition, we will honor the memory of Jesus’ humiliation at the hands of those in power before he is led to the cross to be crucified by the stripping of the altar and the chanting of Psalm 22. This worship will be posted on Maundy Thursday at 6 p.m.

Good Friday: The ancient title for this day is “the Triumph of the Cross.” A reminder for us that the church gathers not to mourn this day but to celebrate Christ’s life-giving passion and to find strength and hope in the cross as a symbol of new life. We will share in the unfolding drama as Jesus is led to the cross. We will hear the Seven Last Words of our Savior from the cross. And we will give witness to the closing of the tomb. This worship will be posted on Good Friday at 6 p.m.

Easter Sunday: First we hear only hoped for whispers on the wind. Resurrection? Are you sure? We gather to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus, the Christ. We will hear the story of that first Easter sunrise and be surrounded by the joyful sounds of songs that have been sung for generations and songs that new generations are singing. This worship will be posted on Easter Sunday at sunrise around 6:15 a.m. on our website and Facebook.

(Reprinted from the April 2020 newsletter.)

Latino Ministries Update

Our Spanish-speaking families are being impacted by the coronavirus pandemic just as our English-speaking families have been.

Most of the families have at least one family member that works in landscaping, so they just returned back to work after many months of unemployment. Most of the other employed members work in fast food, so they appreciate you continuing to visit drive-throughs since they have had their hours reduced. At the same time, they are worried about still working when much of the world is isolated for safety. Several of the families have six to eight people living in a two bedroom apartment, so they are very much looking forward to social isolation programs coming to an end.

Our Latino families are missing the feeling community at church and are especially saddened at the cancellation of Holy Week (Semana Santa) activities. In Spanish-speaking countries, this is the biggest holiday week of the year.

Edwin has been in frequent contact with the families, with regular phone calls. He has also been holding Sunday services and nearly daily devotions on Facebook. The primary goal has been to provide a moment of reflection, comfort, and worship for the Spanish-speaking members of Ascension. Pastors in many Spanish-speaking countries are not comfortable with social media, so these videos have filled a gap in many other countries as well.

(Reprinted from the April 2020 newsletter.)

Walk the Road of Lent

Ash Wednesday will be celebrated on February 10 at both 12 p.m. and 7 p.m. at Ascension. You are invited to gather with your brothers and sisters to worship God and be reminded that God cares about your whole life.

In Lent, we hear God’s promises in new ways…that EVERY end is a beginning; that EVERY night gives way to morning; that EVERY hurt can be healed; that EVERY broken moment can be redeemed; that EVERY life lost can be found; that EVERY cross carried can be given to Jesus; that EVERY prayer spoken is heard.

In my life, Lent is the ground on which I walk the journey of my faith. Sometimes the ground is hard and packed down. In other areas, the ground is dry and cracked. Still other roads are muddy and hard to navigate. And then in the season of Lent, I am blessed – as are you blessed – with soft and fertile ground ready and waiting for the new thing God promises to do in each of our lives…should we choose to be open to what God will do in us and through us. Will you choose to walk the road of Lent? Will you let your journey of faith lead you in a new direction at God’s invitation? The invitation has been made…God waits for each of us…will you come?

I wrote those words last year to share the wonder of God’s promise to be with us. The words were important enough to share with you again as the season of Lent arrives with Ash Wednesday.

After the four weeks of Advent that lead us to Christmas, the 40 days that make up the season of Lent, leading us to Easter, provide the most powerful witness to the events of Holy Week that call us to an empty tomb on Easter morning. God provides everything we need on our journey. You only need to hear God’s call and follow. I know that sounds easier than it is. Our journeys of faith are so often complicated by schedules, careers, children, parents, spouses, weather, and those life circumstances beyond our control. It is true. And then, it is not true.

Our individual journeys of faith are of God’s design. Not one of us travels the same road and yet our journeys provide moments of awareness of the other. I am reminded of the words of the song:

Will you let me be your servant? Let me be as Christ to you? Pray that I might have the grace to let you be my servant, too. We are pilgrims on a journey, we are trav’lers on the road. We are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.

Lent is our opportunity to travel the road together to help each other walk the mile and bear the load. You are invited to join us on this journey through Lent. Come and see the new thing God is doing. Peace be with you.

~ Pastor Chris Marien

(This post was originally published in Ascension’s February 2016 newsletter).