Easter Transformations

After Good Friday service, we transformed the sanctuary.  Some years, our pastor has had to do that all by himself.  Other years, some of us have come back on Easter Saturday.  This year, for a variety of reasons, it made sense to do it on Friday night.

Our sanctuary began with this somber look:

Here's a close up of the altar, with a candle formation we made during our last Wednesday night art project:

After the service, we spent time taking away the rocks, the ones in the bucket that hold up the cross and the ones on the altar.  We brought all the lilies up from the closet.  We played with a variety of fabrics.  And finally, our altar looked like this:

With the cloth on the altar, I was trying to evoke abandoned gravecloths.  I don't know if anyone else will see it.

Here's the longer view of the sanctuary:

And now, for the real work of the day, for those of us who have spent many an Easter hearing the story:  how do we make it new again?  How do we commit to this story of resurrection?  How do we proclaim it?

Wishing a blessed Easter for us all--let us remember how deeply we are loved.  Let us remember that God can make a way out of the most wretched violence, and that the transformation continues.