Looking Back - Easter Memories

Each year as I walk through Easter week, I remember the traditions I experienced as I was growing up. 

The Union Gospel Church of East Poestenkill was where my faith first began.

The week began with Palm Sunday. Our pastor, Rev. Charles Pollock, retold the story from the Bible, and brought palm fronds to church for each of us to take home after the service. Sometimes we formed them into a cross to remember the suffering and death of Christ.

The children's choir led out in the chorus and the congregation joined in the song "All Glory, Laud, and Honor", which told the story of Christ's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.
[Can you spot me - I'm front and center!]

The next event was Maundy Thursday which was held in the upstairs part of our fellowship hall. The pastor had prepared a table surrounded by 13 chairs. One chair held the picture of Jesus painted by Warner Sallman which usually hung in the downstairs fellowship hall. The other chairs were empty, signifying the disciples at the night of the Last Supper. After singing a few songs such as Hallelujah, What a Savior,  When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, and 'Tis Midnight; and on Olive's Brow, Rev. Pollock would read the story of the Last Supper when Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples. He then invited us to sit at the chairs around the table, 12 people at a time, to receive communion. The lights were off, with only candles at the table, helping us to put ourselves in the story. When all had finished, we closed with another hymn as we remembered Jesus singing with his disciples at the end of the meal, and then walking together to Gethsemane.
The candles would be blown out, and we walked out quietly to our homes.

I don't remember attending a Good Friday service until I moved after college to Corry PA to work at the Evangelical UM Church there. The community held a three hour service in the middle of the day, with pastors and choirs from the various local churches each reflecting on the last words of Jesus on the Cross:

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. 
Today you will be with Me in paradise. 
Behold your son, behold your mother. 
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me. 
I thirst. 
It is finished. 
Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit. 

Each of the seven last statements of Christ took on new meaning as the speakers spent time unpacking the words. It was a rich ecumenical event, demonstrating the unity of Christ's Church as we observed this saddest of all days.

Back to the time I was a child, Easter morning was full of traditions. My church, the Union Gospel Church, and the local Baptist church would meet in a large parking lot at 6:30 in the morning just as the sun was beginning to rise. We could hear a brook gurgling nearby, and the birds beginning to chirp. There were only one or two times that we had to move to the church due to snow or rain, but we considered the cold to be worth it as we heard the good news of the Resurrection and sang loudly with our breath making great clouds around us. I usually had a new Easter dress, hat, gloves and shoes, which barely kept me warm that morning. The new clothes were symbols to me of the New Life which Jesus brought that Resurrection morning.

After the one hour service, we went to church for breakfast. Scrambled eggs, sweet rolls, orange juice and coffee hit the spot, and prepared us for the morning worship service an hour later. 

Some years we had an Easter Cantata in the morning service. Many years, we children presented poems and re-enacted the story, complete with costumes and a makeshift curtain that could be drawn for change of scenes. The hymns for the day were the most joyous - I Know that My Redeemer Liveth, Christ Arose, and of course Christ the Lord is Risen Today. I have missed singing those over the many years living in Kenya. They were songs of triumph. Of hope. Of a Savior worthy to receive my praise and love.

Tradition. Sounds, visuals, smells, tastes, touch. 

My grasp of the Greatest Story on earth and the foundations of my faith 

came through all these senses, 

as year after year my family, church, and community 

retold it in ways 

that even a child could understand.