During the Sunday morning sermon about two weeks before Lent was due to begin, I felt like the Holy Spirit was directing me to to do something different with our church’s Lenten decor this year. The last two years, our Liturgical Decorating Team had created a desert-scape using burlap, dried sticks, clay vessels, and rocks, with scraggly greenery sparsely tucked in. We created an image of the wilderness because Lent always takes us back to the wilderness.
Sensing that Holy Spirit was calling for something different, I focused in on what I was sensing. “Keep the burlap.” Lent is a season of repentance. The burlap is symbolic of sackcloth. Repentance is linked with mourning and often involved sitting in sackcloth and ashes. This made sense to me.
“Mirrors. Different ones. Lots of them. Fill the chancel.”
Um…what?
Where He Leads Me…
It’s my experience that, when I feel like God is telling me something and I can’t wrap my head around it, He does not mind my asking for clarification. In this case, it had me scribbling on my bulletin. I had to ask Him for clarification. I had to ask Him to explain what the mirrors were all about.
When I sat down to prayerfully write out an explanation later so I could help my church family understand what was going on with all these mirrors, God graciously supplied what I needed to say.
I gave that text to my pastor. I’d already explained to him what I felt God was leading me to do, and he had immediately offered to contribute to the cause (the green-framed mirror, gold-framed mirror, and two mesh-framed mirrors came from him). After my pastor read the explanation I’d written, he asked me to plan our Ash Wednesday service around it. With much prayer, I did just that.
Ash Wednesday
I’m attaching that order of worship for anyone who might find it useful. Credits for the music we used (we do not have a church musician) and pieces of liturgy that were incorporated wholesale or adapted for our needs can be found on the last page of the of the document. You are welcome to use this in your own worship planning for Ash Wednesday.
The mirrors remained for the duration of Lent. They were to serve as a reminder of the questions that were asked during Ash Wednesday and as a reminder that Lent is a season of self-reflection and repentance. They are also a reminder that it’s not just what we reflect outwardly to others that matters. What is reflected within us also matters.
Maundy Thursday
My pastor ended up asking me to plan our Maundy Thursday service as well. The mirrors played into that service also, and the order of worship can be found here. Again, you are welcome to use it for your own Maundy Thursday planning — or Good Friday, since it lends itself more to that service.
Mirrored Thoughts
Mirrors, unless they are warped in some way, give a true reflection of what is placed in front of them. It occurred to me, after listening to my pastor’s wife talk about what she saw in the mirrors during worship, that, even though two people might be sitting side-by-side in the worship space, what each of them sees in one mirror is going to be slightly different. Their perspectives are not the same because they are not in the exact same spot. The mirror reflects faithfully, but because each of their perspectives is slightly different, what they see is slightly different. Neither of them is wrong; they each just see things a little differently.
Something to ponder as we head toward the conclusion of our Lenten journey.
Grace and Peace,
Jeanna