LAC LA BICHE - With the Easter season set to begin this week, churches in the Lac La Biche area are celebrating the holy celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Julie Hink, a deaconess with the Lord of Glory Lutheran Church and whose husband, Phil Hink, is the church pastor, said with Holy Week beginning on Palm Sunday — this year on March 24 — members of the congregation greet the day with the traditional act of waving palm branches — with a local flair.
While the waving of palms stripped from palm trees is common among Christians around the world, Lord of Glory parishioners use a more local-and relatable- substitute; pine branches and spruce boughs.
“It works fine, and our people see the logic, so all is good,” Hink stated.
For their Palm Sunday celebration, Hink continued, the church also does a dramatic reading of one of the gospel accounts of Holy Week. This year, the selection is the Gospel of Mark.
Another Palm Sunday event will be held at the Lac La Biche Mission on March 24 and includes a petting zoo and Easter egg hunt. That event will be held at the historical site from 1 to 4 pm.
With Palm Sunday completed, the Easter observance continues Holy Thursday, when the Lord of Glory Church hosts a Sedar Meal which the public is invited to attend. According to the Bible, this is a Passover meal Jesus observed the night he was betrayed, and it remembers the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt.
The event, which takes place at 6 p.m., offers the traditional Passover foods like roast lamb, unleavened bread, several fresh herbs and vegetables, wine, haroset (a sweet, dark-colored paste made of fruits and nuts eaten at the Passover Seder) and boiled eggs.
Good Friday includes observing a Tenebrae Service, an ancient traditional service of increasing darkness as worshippers observe the final hours before Christ’s death. This is followed by scripture, and the extinguishing of candles as the service continues, leading to the moment of Christ’s death, where the church becomes completely dark.
Hink says, it is a “very moving service.”
Lord of Glory parishioners will join with others from three other local churches, the New Life Victory Fellowship, the Evangelical Free Church, and Triumphant Life, on Good Friday for an annual ecumenical service that will take place at the Bold Centre from 10:30 a.m. – noon.
This gathering of Christian unity on Good Friday is hosted by the New Life Victory Fellowship.
Angie Werk, a pastor at New Life Victory, said organizers of the event — which is in its ninth year — rent space at the Bold Centre to have a service as a way of acknowledging Good Friday but also to begin to mark the Easter celebration soon to come.
The collaborative Easter events highlight the benefits of working together with others, says Werk.
“We divide the portions of the service out to each of the participating churches,” Werk said. “We love to see the community of faith come together like this and share communion.”
The fellowship also holds its annual Easter Sunday service at 10 a.m.
Other churches will also hold special Easter Sunday observances in their respective houses of worship.
