Good Friday - Friday of Holy Week - Grace Lutheran Church and School - Sandy, UT - April 18th, 2014

       Today was the day I visited the Lutherans. Specifically Lutherans of the Missouri Synod which is the more conservative branch of the Lutheran Church in America...and it showed. The speakers and pastors were all men, though it did look like at least some women were in leadership positions though sadly not in leading the service type of ways.

    The Church itself is connected to a school and the Chapel is beautiful. The colors today were black, rather than the White of Yesterday and the Red of Tuesday. The High Church or Churches connected to the High Church are good in regards to using the traditional colors to represent where and what should be felt during Holy Week. Black covered the empty cross, a smaller cross with a figurine of Jesus on it (which you generally don't see in Lutheran Churches), and the podium.

      After I arrived the first hymn was sung...and they have an organ! This is one small detail I've loved about all the Lutheran churches I've attended. Organs are great at creating a good somber ambiance and are lovely when played.

      It opened with variation on the Nicene Creed where the pastor said Christ did this, and congregation replied "To do this for us." With details relating to atonement and resurrection. After was the old Testament reading which was about Isaiah's prophecy of the coming Messiah and later the Epistle from Hebrews about Jesus being the Sacrifice and High Priest of the Christian Church before the final New Testament reading of Jesus's crucifixion with the two thieves. 

 

     After was the sermon about evil, which to be frank didn't really answer any questions about evil. God is good and destroys evil was the basic jist of it and Christ who is God came to do that as well. The problem was it was only spoken in generalities of sin and the Devil, both themes have historically been used to oppress...if it had been targeted at oppression or even hypocrisy than it would have made more sense...but given that Sodom and Gomorrah was brought up...well, no such luck. The problem was never truly addressed and in the end all I got from it that I didn't know from Christianity before was that it doesn't help on dealing with actual problems in the world, bringing up evil and the Devil I mean. I've only seen them used to hurt innocents like those with mental illness (saying their possessed by demons) and LGBTQ folks and attacking the people we love.

    The part that was beautiful was after when the seven words were spoken and candles that had been lit at the beginning of the service were snuffed out as different quotes of Jesus's last day were read from the New Testament. One candle was left lit for Easter and a drum was pounded after it was lead out by one of the men in charge of the service.

    It was good for reflection and I was invited back here for Easter. Don't know if I will be coming back or not...I hope to visit more Christendom...and maybe find another community like the Unitarians or Episcopals to get involved with. Regardless, it was a good Friday.