At Home

Our family loves the Easter season, especially Holy Week. On Ash Wednesday, we placed our “cradle to the cross” wreath on our dining room table and filled it with candles. As Lent bent the lengthening days toward Holy Week, we extinguished one candle each night and talked about what we could leave out, or add into our lives, in preparation for Easter. Lenten observation looks different for everyone in our family, just as faith, testimony, and desires differ for each one of us. By Good Friday, only one candle will remain, to be snuffed out in the memory of Jesus “giving up the ghost” and His body being placed in the tomb before sunset ushered in the Sabbath. 

This Palm Sunday will mark 13 years of nurturing and adapting our family’s Holy Week traditions – a span that covers most of my children’s formative years. From toddler to teen, they have come to anticipate and look forward to Holy Week. I remember their tiny hands clutching tufts of grass, finding a curled brown leaf, a round rock, or smelling a purple hyacinth during our Easter Walks. 

Years later, my older girls would join me at the Cathedral of the Madeleine for an Easter Vigil service. Our traditions have evolved and grown over the years. Sometimes my ideas have limped along with a kid or two reluctant to join in (cue the audible sighs and eye-rolling). Other times something I didn’t expect to stick would go off splendidly. I’ve learned it’s best, especially with teens, to invite, not force, be flexible, and recognize it can still be meaningful when things don’t go as planned.

Trust in the Process of Teaching and Trying

Last week, I asked my kids these questions. 

How have our Holy Week practices/traditions and learning about Holy Week impacted you? What has it done for your relationship with your Savior? 

From Spencer, age 15: “Studying Holy Week and learning more about Christ and His sacrifice has helped me get to know Him better. It has taught me what happened to Him and how much He went through for us. We learn so much about Him at the end of His days and that’s when you see the true character of someone. Christ showed us that even though He knew He was going to die, He didn’t back down from this challenge ahead of Him. This makes me have a greater respect and love for Him.”

From Gordon, age 15: “The things we have done over the years during Holy Week have given me a deeper understanding of Christ’s last days as a mortal on this earth. It has taught me to really appreciate all that Christ suffered. It has definitely strengthened my relationship with our Savior. I now understand all that He went through and once you understand that, it makes it almost impossible to not love Jesus. I have especially loved watching the videos the Church made about Christ’s last days on earth.”

From Ali, age 18: “Holy Week practices over the years have helped establish a base for testimony in my life. It has taught me to seek a personal relationship with my Savior by studying His life and sacrifices. It has allowed me to understand the great and deep love our Savior must have had to do what he did for us and the importance of living our lives in reflection of His. I have loved finding beautiful things in nature that tell the Easter story on our Easter walks.”

From Sami, age 18: “Holy Week has shown me not only how much Christ loves each of us, but how much He is loved. When His earthly life ended, his disciples, apostles, friends, all mourned, and so did the earth. His presence was so magnificent that when it was gone, the world faced storms and disruption. His love was so great that people were drawn to Him even without knowing Him. Learning about Holy Week has also taught me the beauty of finding truth in other religions. My favorite night is passover. Each food we eat is symbolic of a biblical moment or something related to Christ. The entire meal is an incredible reminder of what Christ has done for people throughout time and how He protects and loves His spiritual family, which includes each one of us.”

From Eliza, age 19, currently serving a spanish-speaking mission: “Holy Week has given me a greater appreciation for the life of Jesus Christ. I’ve come to understand how much the resurrection blesses each one of us, as well as Jesus’ suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross. To know that we can overcome sin and death because of Him is everything. Because of our Holy Week traditions, I have a better understanding of middle eastern culture, which is so rich, deep, and ancient. It’s also given me a broader education in the value of other faiths and denominations, especially the Jewish religion, and this has grown my love for all of God’s children. My favorite tradition is sharing the Passover meal.”

These were sweet testimonials for me to read. Evidence that as parents, we should trust in the process of teaching and trying. For after all these years of trying, when I wasn’t sure what they were absorbing, I can now see glistening wisps of testimony, woven and tethered to their spirits, threads of love and gratitude for their Jesus.

A Love Planted

Go back in time with me thirty years, almost to the day. It is Palm Sunday, 1995, and I am studying as a student at the BYU Jerusalem Center. We gather near Bethany, atop the Mount of Olives, with all kinds of worshippers. Nuns, priests, boy scouts, children, Christians from a variety of countries, even muslims. That contentious corner of the world, for one day, feels united and happy.

Matthew writes, “And when [Jesus] was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved” (Matthew 21:10). And so it was for us. Literally. The crowd seems to carry us down the mountain. Everyone is singing and swaying as we shuffle down the winding road through Lion’s Gate. There are hosannas from the rooftops. Boys, like Zacchaeus, climb telephone poles for a better view, children perch on the walls, and believers press palms against their chests. Even a lonely camel, who appears to have lost his owner, grunts in my ear, clip-clopping a few steps behind. As we sidle into the city, shoulder to shoulder, I wave my own palm and shout my own Hosannas. I feel completely alive. I am caught in the throng, but realize I am boldly declaring my faith with each shout. I’m not just going along; I belong. This descent into the city wall was for One who would descend below us all. Being “moved” not just physically, but spiritually that day, tied me to my Deliverer, my King. I wanted to praise Him all my life. 

On Holy Saturday, still 1995, I am with a group of students who decide to attend an Easter Vigil service at St. Anne’s Church, near the Pool of Bethesda. I didn’t know this then, but the Paschal Vigil Liturgy is the holiest of Liturgies within the Catholic faith. It takes place in between the hours of sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise Easter morning. We side-step into the pews with other believers, to sing hymns and listen to scripture. White taper candles are passed around and from one large candle glowing in the sanctuary before us, light is passed from one patron’s candle to the next, each of us sharing light with the worshiper beside us.

Eventually, the entire chapel is flickering with individual flames. As we silently file out of the church, our candles dance into the dark Jerusalem night. The symbolism of cradling our tiny lights against the blackness felt like a silent shout of hope that we knew Jesus would rise again. On this day of waiting, as it is sometimes called, I determined I would choose to wait on the Lord, whenever waiting was required. This vigil whispered a quiet witness to my spirit, that I could believe in a Living Christ – the literal Light of the World. 

These two events, along with a service at the Garden Tomb Easter morning and time spent witnessing the traditions of many denominations during the Easter season, introduced me to what the Greater Christian world calls Holy Week and planted a profound love for Jesus in my soul. I wanted this kind of worship, remembrance, and celebrations of Christ to remain in my life.

Creating New Traditions

Fast forward 12 years and our young family has just moved to Salt Lake City from Washington DC. My husband, Doug, and I have five small children under the age of five and I am anxious as their mother to teach them about Jesus, and to do it in ways that will settle deeply in their shiny hearts. As Easter rolls around, I remember sitting in our living room, looking out the window at the pink blossoms on our crabapple tree, and wondering why our church didn’t do more to celebrate Holy Week. In fact, for years after that, I would quietly hope that Palm Sunday would at least be mentioned from the pulpit, and it was, but only once. I felt we had so much to learn from the way the larger Christian world reverenced Holy Week. 

So I created my own Easter Vigil to do with my little kids. We filled mason jars with pinto beans, placed votive candles inside, and hung our lights in the crabapple tree after sunset on Holy Saturday. Our own silent witness that we believed in, waited on, and loved the Lord.

From that tradition grew many others. I started reading blogs by Christian writers and paid attention to how they celebrated Holy Week. I studied each day of Holy Week in the scriptures, and read multiple commentaries about what transpired for the Savior during the final events of His mortality. I put together a study guide for our family, along with traditions for each day of Holy Week, and Easter became meaningful and memorable to us.

Making Holy Week real and vibrant for our family has taken effort and planning, but the joy that has accompanied it has given me that same feeling of being alive that I felt in Jerusalem, that first Palm Sunday decades ago.

Evolution of Church Perspective

Author and professor, Patrick Mason, explains in his book, Restoration, that for many years the church worked tirelessly to separate itself from the rest of Christianity. We were different to be sure, but in a way, we had built a fortress around our faith, unwilling to link arms with other churches, or even learn from them. Mason calls it “The Fortress Church.” He goes on to explain, “Jesus doesn’t do moats, drawbridges, or walls. (He does do gates, but only by way of getting us through the right one.) Instead, our Savior is in the business of breaking down walls and building bridges” (Restoration, 7). It’s important to note, Mason says, that “this isn’t meant by way of indictment” (3). The “fortress church” was a survival and strengthening tactic, probably necessary for our infant church to sink roots and be distinctive from mainstream Christianity as we tried to make inroads across the globe.

But Mason continues, “The Spirit is breathing new life into Christ’s church. You can feel it. It’s time to lower the drawbridge, open the shutters, and let in the air. It’s time to take the precious gifts that God has entrusted us with, and use them to bless the world. It’s time to let the restoration do its work not just for the church but for the world” (8).

I love that imagery and could not agree more. So you can imagine my absolute delight this year as I’ve watched our church – the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – the Savior’s New Testament Church restored to the earth in our day, lead out in making Easter more than a once-a-year sacrament meeting. They have initiated a new #GreaterLove campaign, similar to the #LightTheWorld effort that has been so successful at Christmastime. (You can learn more about the Greater Love campaign and sign up for #GreaterLove emails here.)

In February, Dallin H. Oaks made this statement: “As we enter this new year, let us prepare for an Easter celebration of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, culminating in His Resurrection — the most glorious event in history.”

Just this weekend, Elder Gary E. Stevenson gave a second conference talk on Easter, galvanizing members to move into a “higher and holier” worship during Easter by building Easter traditions into our communities and family life. During the Saturday afternoon session, he made this promise, “I testify that all who accept the invitations from our living prophet and his counselors to more intentionally commemorate the holy events that Easter represents will find that their bond with Jesus Christ grows ever stronger.”

And President Nelson posted the following on his Instagram account in March. “The Savior’s Resurrection was the ultimate triumph, the ultimate miracle, wrought of foreordination, indescribable agony, and divine power from on high… When we talk of the greater love of Jesus Christ for each of us, I testify that Jesus Christ’s Resurrection is the ultimate expression of that love.”

Evidence in our Congregations

Our Stake Primary held an Easter activity last month that taught all the children about Holy Week and even included a room they converted into a tomb with crumpled swaths of gray paper, so the children could step inside and feel what it would have been like to find the tomb empty, the linen cloths lying. 

A few days ago, in collaboration with two other stakes, our stake performed Rob Gardner’s oratorio, The Lamb of God. It was incredibly moving and powerful. I also noticed on the church’s website that for the first time ever, the church will hold a Palm Sunday Celebration, 6PM on April 13th MDT. 

I am cheering on every one of these events! And loving the Easter momentum I expect will only continue to grow as our awareness increases and our connections with other Christian churches strengthen.

Holy Week Study Guide and Traditions

I’m happy to offer you our Holy Week Study Guide & Traditions. Download here. It includes a historical background and summation of what happened each day of the Savior’s last week, followed by a multi-faceted approach to worship.

Read – selected scripture accounts associated with each day of the week.
Consider – questions that could be used as journal prompts or topics to discuss as a family.
Watch – LDS Bible videos connected to the events of each day.
Do – something memorable each day – an activity, walk, craft, recipe, or service to attend. 

I hope as we tell the stories of Jesus during this season, we will honor Him, not just with our words and traditions, but by the way we love those in front of us. Christ is our great Redeemer, Messiah-King, Liberator, and Anointed One. The Lamb of God, come to lay down His life for me, for you, for all.

“And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).