"Attend a Good Friday Service"

This week has been a week of firsts.

For the first time I:

+bought a pillow pet.

+went to a movie past 9pm.

+became a Macbook owner.

+sent a deck of cards in the mail.

+Spent Easter with my roommate.

+made a raspberry Jell-o Poke Cake.

+ran into a friend who was on a first date.

+rode in an elevator with a custodian's cart.

+was told that my excitement about absolutely everything is a good thing.

The best "first" was
attending a Good Friday Service for the first time.

It was a very sunny Good Friday, 

and a very snowy Easter Sunday.
I attended a Wesleyan Church service on Friday,
and a baptist one on Sunday. 

Friday was the very first time that I attended a service on Good Friday. It was the most powerful communion time I've ever experienced. A lot of the time I find myself trying really hard to be in tune with God when I'm holding a tiny piece of bread and a little cup of juice. Sometimes I look around and see people who just seem to be able to "be there", really in communion with God. This service, however, was different. I am usually all for passing the plate, I like being served by the person before me, and I like serving the person after me, but this service was so much more intimate. We were invited to go to a station when we felt moved, and partake in communion when we felt fit. It was quite the experience. I am convinced that it was because it was on Good Friday, and because I was sitting in between two sisters in Christ that absolutely inspire me. Out of all of the communion services that I have participated in, which really isn't that many, this has been the first one where my heart has been fully opened, and maybe it was the same for the three other congregations surrounding me in one sanctuary. In no way am I saying that the other 80ish communions I've participated in were superficial or meaningless, I'm just saying that the one with the deepest connection and the most stirring emotions took place on Friday. 

I have been mulling over a question since the first semester of second year of university. It was posed to me by a very wise professor. He simply asked which comes first, the ritual, or the meaning. At some points I have thought it to be the meaning, because why would someone take communion without knowing what it means? Then I kept thinking that it's impossible to truly understand the ritual without actually doing it. (What they don't tell you in a liberal arts university, and what you have to find out for yourself, is that nothing is a yes or no question.) When your essay topic is "In Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, what is most important for marriage, wealth or love?" The only way to get an A is to defend the thought that both are important and although one should not marry on the basis of wealth alone, one would be careless to not factor it in at all. The same goes for rituals (mind you, the profs never answer these questions for you, they make the questions feed on your mind until you make the effort to figure them out). The more you partake in a ritual, the more the significane will (hopefully) grow, it is a direct relationship. 

I know that just because I've had this wonderful experience, not every time I eat a tiny piece of bread and drink a tiny bit of juice will I have this spiritual high, or as some pastors like to call it "a mountain top experience" but I now know not only that it is possible, but I know what it feels like, and I am very thankful that I invested myself into it. This experience is not one we can buy, nor is it one that we can plan, but it IS one we can prepare for. Let's open our hearts to whatever we're doing. Invest our time, effort, and ourselves. Let's open our hearts for bigger, greater possibilities. Let's wake up each morning knowing that there is a possibility for many miracles. Both the servies I went to this Easter talked about miracles, stressing that the time of miracles is not over. My friends, the best is yet to come.