Reflections on Holy Week and Easter Day 2011

The journey through Holy Week is always one of highs and lows - walking with Jesus during the dark hours of Maundy Thursday and bearing witness to His suffering on the Cross on Good Friday, and the joy of the Risen Lord on Easter Day. It is a pattern that Christians have gone through for hundreds of years, but it remains a faith-affirming period where our personal relationship with God is made manifest in the Risen Lord on Easter Day.

At St Barnabas we journey through Holy Week with a service every day, starting on Palm Sunday, moving through Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with a simple Holy Communion as we meditate on the Gospels. Journeying through Holy Week is a very personal experience and is borne from a personal relationship with God, so for each of us the events of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday are shared together, however each of us takes something different from the experience. For most Christians Holy Week is the most important week in the Christian calendar. 

As we experience the uncertainty and loss, as the Disciples did after Jesus was arrested at the Garden of Gethsemane, we emerge through it all to experience the wondrous joy of Christ's resurrection and a personal promise to each of us for life everlasting. On this page you will find a small number of photographs taken during Holy Week which we hope will encourage you to 'walk with us' at St Barnabas.

Maundy Thursday: Before the 'Stripping of the Altar'		Good Friday: A Church Stripped of All Adornment
Good Friday: Meditations and Reflections		Holy Saturday: Life Begins to Emerge
Easter Day: The Empty Cross		Easter Day: Preparing for the Egg Race...
Easter Day: Egg Rolling in Full Swing		Easter Day: The Vicar Expertly Catches the Winner
Easter Day: Christ Has Risen		Easter Day: Celebrating Holy Communion