by Carol Dixon
While I have been confined to the house in the recent weeks, I have thought a lot about gardens. I am a terrible gardener, yet I love visiting gardens and reading about gardens. It is wonderful that one of the earliest stories in the Bible is about a garden.
‘The Eternal God planted a garden in the east in Eden—a place of utter delight—and placed the man whom He had sculpted there. In this garden, He made the ground full of glorious life—bursting forth with nourishing food and luxuriant beauty. He created trees, and in the centre of this garden of delights stood the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river meandered through Eden to irrigate the garden, and from there it separated into four smaller rivers that flowed out from it.’
I like to imagine Adam and Eve waking and seeing the garden for the first time. What did they notice first I wonder? And when the first night came after the glory of daylight, were they afraid and thought the light had gone forever What relief and joy they must have felt when the light dawned again.
The spiritual writer Margaret Silf in her book Landscapes of Light has this to say about Gardens:
What I wonder does a garden mean for you? Summer days enjoying the scent of new-mown grass and the fragrance of flowers? Birdsong? Vegetables and herbs that travel only the distance between your kitchen garden and your table? Or maybe hard work, an aching back, an invincible army of weeds.
Would it surprise you to discover that God is to be found in the labour as well as the love, in the heart’s aching as well as in the heart’s desire? The word ‘paradise’ in its ancient Persian, Hebrew and Greek forms, originally meant ‘a sacred enclosure’. Your heart is a garden, the place you go to meet God in prayer and the place where God meets you to help you tend the sacredness you share.
What kind of garden are you in today I wonder – a garden of hope and joy, or a garden of suffering?
If it is the latter, I find that a hymn that helps me is the beautiful ‘When my love for Christ grows weak’
The poet Samuel Longfellow added an extra verse:
And I praise will firmer faith
Christ who vanquished pain and death
And to Christ enthroned above
Raise my song of selfless love.
In times of darkness, let us remember that the light will return. After our times of isolation, we will walk in the garden again. Meanwhile in our times of confinement let’s remember the warmth of the sun, the softness of the rain on our faces, the gentleness of the grass beneath our feet, the return of the dawn. And in all let us never forget the life-giving love of God that surrounds us.
Easter Garden
Lord we have seen you walking
The garden at dewy dawning;
Lord we have heard you talking
As birdsongs greet the morning;
And Lord we have met you living
Where once we thought you dead;
And we rejoice to find yo-u
Blessing the broken bread.
Lord we have seen you caring
For those who were filled with sorrow;
Lord we have heard you sharing
Your hope for a new tomorrow;
And Lord we have felt you filling
Our lives with your love divine,
And we receive your new life
As we sha-re bread and wine.
© Carol Dixon (Tune Silent witness Handel)
As a child, I loved having a new outfit for Easter. Not only would I have a new dress, but also a new hat and “spring coat,” and matching purse and shoes. As a teenager, I would make a special shopping trip to Downtown Pittsburgh with Mother for our outfits, and as a young mother I made sure our girls were appropriately dressed for the important day. Granted, this tradition included a fair measure of vanity, as illustrated by the old song, “Easter Parade.” (You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade.”) Still, I see some value in dressing to honor a celebration, and what greater cause for celebration than the Resurrection?
The tradition of new outfits for Easter has faded in recent years, aside from frilly dresses for the youngest celebrants. This year, most celebrations may take place virtually. No one will know if we’re wearing a designer outfit or our pajamas! This compels us to look more closely at our spiritual clothing—the garments of genuine and lasting significance.
But before we look at what we should put on, we need to think about what we take off. Have you ever dreamed that you showed up to class in your fuzzy slippers? I have! Yet not once have I forgotten to take off my pajamas before donning my Easter outfit! In the same way, in spiritual dressing, we first need to properly unclothe ourselves.
Colossians 3 offers specific directions for both undressing and redressing. Verse 5 begins with a list of things that we need to take off: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed. We may feel these extreme characteristics do not apply to us. But the list gets more personal: anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, and lying. Can any of us say none of these have ever applied to us? Paul tells us to take off these parts of our old self.
Once we’ve gotten undressed, we’re ready to put on our new selves. These clothes include compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, and love. And to complete the outfit, we allow Christ’s peace to rule in our hearts and are thankful as we teach and admonish one another, all in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Easter, with its promise of new and eternal life, provides a good occasion to check our spiritual clothing. During Lent, we review aspects of our old natures that we need to take off. Once properly undressed, we look at the list of things we can put on. What do you want to emphasize this Easter? A renewed desire to focus on kindness or compassion? God’s help in being more patient with others?
This season provides a special opportunity to let the peace of God rule in our hearts (v. 15). With COVID-19 dominating every news cycle and every conversation, we need inner peace more than ever. The verse does not tell us to be peaceful—something we have to work at—but to let God’s peace rule. This act of submission allows God’s peace to flow into our lives.
May you find peace and share joy as you dress up for Easter this year!
By Mary Harwell Sayler —
As our Bible Study group proceeds through scripture each week, we’re often reminded of how a very, very thick curtain separated God’s people from the “Holy of Holies” – a place so holy that even the high priest could not enter but once a year. Inside that sacred space stood the Ark of the Covenant – a gold-covered box containing the stone tablets of the Ten Commandment that God had given to Moses. But, on the cross many centuries later, “Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last breath, and the curtain of the Holy of Holies was ripped in two from top to bottom,” Mark 15:37-38. Only God Himself could have torn that thick curtain from top to bottom! And only God could invite all believers in Christ to enter.
Good Friday
A sword
slashes the sky.
The gash thunders.
Inside the Temple,
the veil in front of
the Holy of Holies
rips apart.
My heart enters.
So we are home this Good Friday…watching and waiting and sheltering in place. Here is a devotional you can follow on your own or with your family or housemates. And it also can be done another time if you’re not able to do it on Good Friday itself.
You will need some props to pray with:
A candle to light as you begin, A piece of paper with a cross outline drawn on it, the handout (GOOD FRIDAY thinplace), a pen, a band aid/bandage, a jar/can of spices ( like cloves, cinnamon, rosemary or basil) i like cloves, but make sure you are not allergic because you will rub this spice in your hands, the curtain print out or a small piece of cloth to tear in two.
GOOD FRIDAY AT HOME
LIGHT A CANDLE AS YOU BEGIN
and LISTEN or READ one or both of these gospel passages MATTHEW 27 and JOHN 19
Bible Gateway has several audio versions of the bible you can use to listen to the passages.
AFTER READING… You can discuss these questions with your family, housemates or journal from them.
WHAT DO YOU NOTICE? What does the Holy Spirit highlight for you?
Is there a word or phrase? Is there something you’ve never thought of before? Is there a question that is raised by this passage?
There is much pain and violence in the account of Jesus’s crucifixion, even before he is nailed to the cross, he is beaten and abused. Pray for people you know who are in pain today. People in your world, and in the world at large who are abused, suffering violence, and being falsely accused. Pray for these people and situations for God’s intervention.
PUT ON A BANDAID to remind you to pray for those in pain and those who are suffering and in need of healing and deliverance.
Who has helped you carry your cross this week? Who has helped you carry the burdens you bear in your life? Pray for these people. Thank Jesus for them. Who in your life needs help to carry their cross today? Ask Jesus to help you serve them. WRITE THEIR NAMES ON YOUR CROSS. 
NEXT, READ/Listen to, and Consider the WORDS of JESUS from the Cross
Read what Jesus said from the cross
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Luke 23:34
“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Luke 23:43
“Woman, behold, your son!”… “Behold, your mother!”…
John 19:26-27
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”Mark 15:34
“I thirst.”
After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture, “I thirst.”
John 19:28
“It is finished”;
John 19:30
“Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!”
Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!”
And having said this he breathed his last. Luke 23:46
What touches you today? Which of these sayings speaks to you?
What do you need to hear from Jesus today?
Do you need to be forgiven? Or do you need Jesus to help you forgive others?
Do you need to know that Jesus wants you to be with him, now and in the future?
Do you need certainty ?
Do you need to know you are not forgotten or abandoned like Mary and John?
Are you feeling forsaken?
What are you thirsty for today?
Do you need the reminder that Jesus is here in the midst of your suffering? That he finished it on the cross?
Are you in need of the reminder that you too are in the hands of the Father?
that you too have the Holy Spirit?
Talk to God about where you are today in the middle of this pandemic.
Ask Jesus to show you how he is here with you.
DRAW OUTLINE OF A CROSS or use the one provided.
Write down on the cross what you are feeling today.
What do you need to hear from Jesus today? Write that on the cross too.
Find a piece of cloth (3x 5 ) or use the curtain print out.
TEAR THE CURTAIN IN TWO
When Jesus died, he opened the way for us to have direct access to God.
The Curtain is Open
The curtain between you and God is now open…torn open by Jesus death on the cross..
You are invited into the Holy of Holies to BE with GOD!
You are no longer separated from God
The barriers are gone!
You are free to be with God!
Talk to God about this. How does this make you feel?
Thank Jesus for His Death and your new freedom and access to God.
TAKE HIS BODY TO THE TOMB
GET OUT YOUR SPICE JAR
They took Jesus’s body off the cross and buried him in a new tomb. (JOHN 19: 38-42)
Consider the scene.
The weeping of his friends and his mother.
The heaviness of the body being wrapped in shroud.
The smell of the spices wrapped in the cloth filling the tomb.
What are you weeping for today?
What are you mourning ?
What are you grieving? Write those things on your cross.
GIVE THEM TO JESUS TO CARRY FOR YOU!
Take some of your spices and sprinkle them in your hand. Rub the spices in your hand and smell their aroma. Let the smell of the spice remind you that Jesus is carrying your grief for you today. And he carries all the grief and the suffering of the world with him.
Let the smell of the spice fill your space.
You might keep an open bowl of this spice out til Easter to remind you of Jesus in the tomb.
BLOW OUT YOUR CANDLE…IT IS FINISHED. JESUS IS BURIED and we wait with his followers everywhere.
CLOSE IN PRAYER: LORD! Give us grace today to love as you love Help us love with extravagance.
Give us hope today for ourselves and others. Heal our hurts and our hearts today so we can serve and help those around us.
Help us to know that YOU are enough.
And help us live today and everyday in Thankfulness.
For all you’ve done and for all you bless us with. In the name of the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. AMEN
ON EASTER SUNDAY…Some churches have the tradition of covering the empty cross with flowers on Easter Sunday morning as a symbol of resurrection and new life. Color the JOY CROSS and fill it with flowers. Place your flowered cross on top of the one you filled on Good Friday.
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
GOOD FRIDAY thinplace PDF TO PRINT OUT
by Carol Dixon
(Based on the United Reformed Church Daily Devotions by Revd Julian Macro)
In the run up to Holy Week, my interest was sparked by a short reflection on Simon of Cyrene by a United
Reformed Church Daily Devotion written by a retired minister, Revd Julian Macro and it prompted me to
explore a bit more about this unknown man who played a key role in the crucifixion story on Good Friday.
Simon was probably a countryman, not a city dweller, who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.
Cyrene was a Greek city in the Province of Cyrenaica in North Africa , now eastern Libya, where a large
community (about 100,000) of Judean Jews had been forced to settle in the time of Ptolomy Soter, a
companion of Alexander the Great and ruler of Egypt, who lived between 323 – 285 BC.
So this foreigner, who came from a far flung corner of the Diaspora of Jews scattered across the world,
found himself among the crowds jostling alongside Jesus as he carried his cross to Golgotha, the place of
the skull, a place of torture and death. Most likely Simon never meant to get caught up in the event- not
many people would have wanted to be there by choice, propelled along by the throng, pushed about by the
soldiers wanting to show as many folk as possible why it didn’t pay to defy the Roman authorities. So a
bemused Simon joined the spectators watching the condemned criminals carrying the cross-pieces from
which they would hang in crucifixion. What was Simon thinking when, with no warning, he was dragged
from the crowd and made to carry the heavy burden?
Mark names Simon and his sons, Rufus and Alexander, which leads us to think that they were known to
Mark’s first readers, presumably as members of the early church community. (They are mentioned in Paul’s
letter to the Romans also). May we assume that watching Jesus as he went to his death had such a
profound affect on Simon that he and his family linked up with the followers of Jesus? Simon did not
volunteer to take up the cross and follow Jesus but was forced to do so. He had no choice. Yet, willing or
unwilling, it changed his life.
There is a wonderful painting by Unison Seiger Koeder that shows Simon shouldering the cross alongside
Jesus, taking the weight on his shoulders. A wonderful gift for the Son of Man who so often shoulders our
burdens alongside us and who reminds his disciples that his yoke is easy and his burden is light when we
are yoked together with him. (Matthew 11:29)
If we feel trapped in a situation not of our own making we may like to remember this story and ask
ourselves who can we offer help to, either in practical ways or by prayer? Who do we know who have no
choice today but to take up their cross unwillingly through illness, infirmity, unemployment, homelessness,
abuse, wrongful imprisonment, starvation or slavery and the many other causes of concern in our world?
As we walk the way of the cross with Jesus on Good Friday and in some small way share in his suffering,
as Simon of Cyrene did, let us remember them too and offer them to God in our prayers.
One of my favourite old hymns is ‘Take up thy cross the Saviour said’ which we often sang in church on
Good Friday when I was a child. May you take these words to heart today.
Take up thy cross, the Saviour said,
if thou wouldst my disciple be;
Take up thy cross with willing heart
and humbly follow after me.
Take up thy cross, let not its weight
fill thy weak soul with vain alarm;
his strength shall bear thy spirit up,
and brace thy heart and nerve thine arm.
Take up thy cross, nor heed the shame,
and let thy foolish pride be still,
thy Lord refused not e’en to die,
Upon a cross on Calvary’s hill.
Take up thy cross then in his strength,
and calmly every danger brave,
’twill guide thee to a better home,
and lead to victory o’er the grave.
Take up thy cross and follow Christ,
nor think till death to lay it down;
for those who bear the cross of Christ
will one day wear the glorious crown.
Charles William Everest 1814-77
by Joy Lenton
It’s Good Friday. A day unlike any other, as the universe holds its breath. A day filled with sombreness and suspense. And a day when history became reshaped by Christ, His life, witness and death—and rising again to newness of life for us.
A grisly cross miraculously became the greatest ever revelation of divine love. The harrowing death which Jesus undertook on our behalf completely restored our broken relationship with Father God, thus making us His adopted children by our faith in Christ.
In his Rule, St. Benedict tells the monks to “Keep death daily before your eyes.” This invites us into remembrance of our own mortality so we might learn to live with a heightened awareness and deeper gratitude for the wonder, preciousness and brevity of the gift of life itself.
Today, of all days, perhaps, let us not forget, brush aside or hurry past the agony Christ endured. Let us linger and look. Let us try to put ourselves in the place of a spectator to the crucifixion of Christ and ponder these things in our hearts.
It will be hard. It was a brutal act. But maybe, just maybe, revisiting the scene will fill us with awe and gratitude for this hugely symbolic, holy and wholly sacrificial act. And cause us to marvel anew at all that Jesus went through for the love of you and me.
The Cross is the ultimate evidence that there is no length the love of God will refuse to go in effecting reconciliation.” — R. Kent Hughes
pixabay.com
Making history
This is no tickle on the timber
but a brutal nailing, a pounding
piercing of tender flesh,
with tendons tautly stretched
to their limit, but no breaking
of his bones takes place.
This is no cheap public sideshow
to fill in a gap before you need
to get home again, but a tense
execution wrought in writhing
agony and pain, with blood flowing
freely like red rivulets of rain.
This is no private spectacle
but an eternal moment etched
in our history, a time when time
itself stands still, and heaven weeps,
while Jesus willingly surrenders
to his Father’s glorious will.
This is not a macabre moment
to be shuddered at and forgotten
about, but one to linger over,
as we seek to understand and glean
the truth of its necessity for you
and me—and how it sets us free.
© joylenton
Only in the Cross of Christ will we receive power when we are powerless. We will find strength when we are weak. We will experience hope when our situation is hopeless. Only in the Cross is there peace for our troubled hearts.” — Michael Youssef
A.W. Tozer – christianquote.info
I have always loved the stained glass panels at St Andrews Episcopal church in Seattle and have really enjoyed this very meditative Stations of the Cross. It is a powerful and enriching experience that I highly recommend to you.
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