Starting Sunday, April 28th, Church of the Messiah invites you to join us as we celebrate the holiest week of the entire year!  Holy Week commemorates the final week of Jesus Christ’s life on earth before His betrayal, death, and glorious Resurrection on Easter Sunday.  We will be marking the incredible events with special, once-a-year church services that will help you grow closer to The Lord and experience Easter like never before!

Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday.  Our service begins at 10 o’clock on Sunday morning, April 28th.  Palm Sunday commemorates the Triumphal Entry of Our Lord into Jerusalem when the people of the city waved palm branches and cried out “Hosanna” as Jesus entered the city.  Our services will begin outside the sanctuary where we will bless palm branches and then process into the sanctuary together in memory of Our Lord’ Triumphal Entry.  We will also have a special reading of the Passion Gospel and other surprises to commemorate this historic day.

Holy Week continues on April 1st with our observance of Maundy Thursday.  “Maundy” is derived from the Latin word “Mandatum” and refers to Our Lord’s command to “do this in remembrance of Me” when He instituted the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper.  The service will begin at 7 o’clock in the evening and contains two unique and powerfully stirring moments.  The first is where the priests volunteer to wash the feet of those who choose to participate in memory of Our Lord washing the feet of the Apostles at the Last Supper.  The second is the Stripping of the Altar as a sacramental sign and symbol of Christ’s betrayal and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.  You will not want to miss this moving and powerful service.

We remember Our Lord’s Passion and Death on Good Friday, April 2nd.  This service begins at noon and lasts until 3 o’clock in memory of the three hours Our Lord was on the Holy Cross.  During these three hours, we hear the Passion Gospel, meditations from different speakers on the seven last words of Our Lord, moving worship presentations, and participate in the Veneration of the Cross.  Many people say that the Good Friday service is their favorite service of the entire year!  This year we are blessed to have the Patriarch of the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church, Archbishop Craig Bates, deliver one of our meditations.

We will be observing Holy Saturday this year by praying the Liturgy for the Pre-Born outside A Woman’s Choice (click HERE for a map), one of our local abortion clinics.  The Liturgy for the Pre-Born is a set of prayers that combine prayers to end abortion throughout the world with the traditional Last Rites prayed when someone is near the moment of death.  On a day that we remember Christ laying in the tomb, we will be praying for those innocent children who will be killed in this holy season.  We will be praying for them, for the repentance and conversion of all involved in their deaths, and for an end to abortion in American and throughout the world.  This is the only service of Holy Week that will not be held at Church of the Messiah.  The Liturgy will begin at 8 o’clock on Saturday morning, April 3rd.

Finally, on April 4th, we celebrate Easter Sunday at 10 o’clock with the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord!  All of Holy Week has been building to this celebration and we pull out all the stops as we rejoice in Jesus’ victory over death and the grave.  We invite you to join us as we have special presentations for our youth and children, fabulous worship time, and incredible fellowship at the Table of the Lord.  After the service, all of the children are invited to participate in an Easter Egg Hunt as well!

All of our services will be held in the sanctuary of Fort Caroline Presbyterian Church (click HERE for a map) where we have ample room for social distancing.  For more information on our pandemic precautions, visit our COVID-19 Precautions Page. All of our services will be live streamed on Church of the Messiah’s Facebook page for those who are unable to attend in person.  We invite everyone to join with us as we relive these powerful moments in the final week of Christ’s life before His death and Glorious Resurrection.

Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely
more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from
generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus
for ever and ever. Amen.     Ephesians 3:20,21