Eastingle

I said it last week, that before I even thought about it, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday will be upon us and Sunday would be rushing up.

Well here it is. Holy week is about to over take my life.

After my posts last week, I got myself involved in Eastingle preparations. Which is not more than I can handle, but something I believe is important for the life of the church and the community, though it makes me crazy busy for a bit!

You're probably wondering what Eastingle is...

Well, it's the follow on from Christingle, which is the celebration of the light coming into the world and banishing the darkness.

For the last couple of years, we've had three Christingle services, we get, on average, 500 people through our doors on Christmas Eve, because of this very special service, which involves an orange, a candle and some sweets.

People started to notice that last year we weren't doing any follow up services - Jesus wasn't a baby for very long (Talledaga Nights!), He grew up. Not a lot of people know what Easter is about, which is strange to me because it is up there in importance with Christmas.

So Eastingle involves a hot cross bun, 3 ribbons (purple, red and white) and a straw.

The Straw goes in the hot cross bun and the ribbons go on the straw in this order

Purple - To signify the ministry of Jesus and His triumphal entry into Jerusalem as the king of the Jews.

Red - To signify the death of Jesus, God's only Son, God as Human form.

White - To signify the fact that when we say sorry God forgets the things we do wrong and we're 'clean' through the sacrifice of Jesus.

Just writing it is pretty powerful. We've got readings to fill in the 'gaps' and a specially written version of Give me Joy in my Heart (Sing Hosanna) as well as Colours Of Day to sing through the service.

We're also using Tim Hughes version of See His Love, with a power point presentation to match as a time for response.

It's still in the early stages of development as a service plan, but we hope that it is something that will happen every year, and we're gathering together all the information about how we've done it and what resources we've used so that we can help others reach out to their community during our festival time. I'll post some photos when the event has happened.

It's also time to remember our roots too. Tonight we are sharing a meal and remembering the last supper, which has it's roots in the Jewish Passover. I do love tradition, especially when it goes back further than I can get my head around (I'm sure I've said that before!).

Time to go out and gather some food!