I spent an hour of Holy Saturday helping our local Lutheran Church prepare their sanctuary for Easter Sunday services. How did it come about that a Mormon got involved in the Lutheran preparations?
Steven has a voice teacher who is employed as the choir director for our local Lutheran Church. Today Craig and I went along to listen to his lesson. I got about one paragraph into the book I brought to read, and noticed the crew of women working on preparations for Easter services. It's against my nature to sit when there is work to do so I offered to help. At first they said it wasn't necessary, but then asked if I could sew, then put me to work sewing ribbons on what would become a banner, or standard, such as you would see carried in the Crusades (think Onward Christian Soldiers). The ribbons were a shiny white and on them we stapled colorful butterflies made by the children of the congregation. When the 10 foot banner was raised it was quite breath-taking--the ribbons glowed when backlit by rays of light from the 2-story windows.
So even though we won't be attending Easter services (I'll be watching LDS General Conference), and even if we were, there wouldn't be these kinds of elaborate decorations, I'll be thinking of the devoted worshipers at our local Lutheran congregation.
While the worship services and doctrines differ in some respects from mine, I rejoiced to see the Easter preparations and contemplate the large congregation that would gather the following day to celebrate and worship Christ. I had similar feelings attending a Catholic Christmas Eve service. Christians of all demonimations have so much of importance in common.
ReplyDeleteVoistinu Voskres! What a neat experience. If Jeremy hadn't been out of town I was going to try to attend some service downtown at one of the churches.
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