For the first time in over a week, everyone in the house felt good enough for an outing. I took the older boys out to lunch at habit burger followed by a trip to the movie theater to watch the Mario movie that they've been waiting for months to see. Ulrich took the little guys out on a bug expedition. Miles with a bug mesh cage and Zander on his teal scooter headed off down the trails to look for ladybugs and spiders.
It was around 6pm when we landed back around the table together for dinner. I wanted do something for good Friday but wasn't sure what. I raised my thoughts and several options to the group.
I explained the services that take place during Holy Week and how we haven't often gone because they are held at 7pm and it is hard for small children to be serious at that time of day and that those services are solemn and important for people to remember Jesus. I shared some alternative traditions - stations of the cross, a family friend who reads the death of Aslan to her grandchildren as an annual Good Friday tradition. I am my boys what should we do today to honor this day?
They decided they would like to have a service at home. I gathered our baptismal candles from the mantel along with a small stone cross. I turned on some contemporary Christian music that was good Friday related and I started lighting the candles. I started with our wedding candle and described our wedding and how we lit the candle together when we got married. Then I got Eddie's candle, Andrew's, Phillips, miles and Zanders. I described each person's baptism. All of them baptized somewhere between good Friday and Easter morning.
We talked about the ancient church and Lent and confirmation and baptism. We talked about Easter vigil and how early believers were baptized at the vigil and why I chose the vigil as the moment I wanted them to join God's family.
I extinguished the candles and we sat in the dark.
"We are baptized into the darkness and loneliness of Good Friday. Sometimes following Jesus means we go to dark and lonely places. But (lighting the 1st candle) Jesus is our light and his light could not be put out on good Friday. (Lighting the rest of the candles) we are baptized into the light of Easter morning. The love of Jesus that can't ever leave us."
The children are quiet, laying on the floor, wrapped around our tiny alter. 6 pillar candles wrapped around a small stone cross.
I read the passion story from John.
I am each child if there was something in the story that they didn't know or that surprised them or struck them. Each shared.
I asked them to grab their candles and hold them and think about baptism and good Friday and Easter. Their faces serious in the candle light. It was a holy moment.
We each picked our favorite hymns and played them on my phone.
We blew out the candles and returned them to the mantel. I told the kids we still had time for a movie or some other activity before bed.
"It's good Friday. We should just be together. Just sit together. "
So we did. We spent the evening in the room. Little ones playing on the floor with tinker toys and stuffed animals. The rest of us lounging on the couch, snacking and chatting about books and movies, ideas and this and that.
It was a holy moment. It was like family after a funeral just being together, holding space, holding a moment. It was like the moment I was hanging out in the old crabapple tree with all my cousins after my grandpa's funeral. We were just together. Talking about things.
This holy vigil with my small tribe felt like good Friday in a way that was deeper than the dramatic retelling of the passion with rough voices or of the sound of the pounding nails.
And, as I put them to bed, I feel the heavy words. "It is finished. "
Thank you, Jesus.
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