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.
This is a Good Friday like no other I have ever experienced. I pray that it is never repeated. Across our world there is a pandemic, snatching lives, separating loved ones, crushing hopes and dreams. The suffering now is extreme and it will continue even after the power of the virus has diminished because of the impact on incomes, relationships and mental health. Those who have given out in heroic ways will themselves need a lot of space to recover.
Because of this, the most agonising of the cries from the cross is somehow particularly relevant this year. Shouted into the darkness, it was a cry of utter desolation. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. All through Jesus’ life he has held in his memory and his spirit that reminder of who he is – the Father’s “Beloved Son”. But now, there is no sound from heaven, no sound at all, and the memory must have seemed almost a mockery.
This sense of abandonment is surely something with which many of us can identify, whether in this current crisis or at other times. I certainly can. People of deep faith are not immune, and in many ways for us the pain is particularly acute. When the friendship which has been the thread running through your life seems somehow disrupted, it can feel as though everything that held your life together is unravelling beyond repair.
Christians believe that at this moment, Jesus was paying the ultimate price for humanity’s capacity for evil, and that is why he could not sense God. At that moment, all the violence of the world was there. All the broken promises were there. All the murder, all the killing, all the hatred between people, all the injustice. All the theft was there, all the adultery, all the pornography, all the drunkenness, all the bitterness, all the greed, all the gluttony, all the abuse of ourselves or others, all the crime, all the cursing. Every vile deed, every wicked thought, every act of self-seeking —all of it was somehow absorbed by Jesus when he hung on the cross. No wonder it was dark. Darker surely in his beautiful spirit, the light of the world, than in the physical world surrounding him.
Yet surely there is more here for us in this particular season we find ourselves forced to endure. Jesus at that moment knew an isolation like no other. Cut off from any sense of love, of connection, not just with his Father and the Spirit but from those too who were at the foot of the cross, who were seeing his suffering yet unable to reach out a hand, to give human warmth and reassurance.
Yet in this very darkness and isolation is our hope. In the moments of our deepest fear, our most raw hurt, our sense of isolation, our feeling most abandoned, we have a companion who has been there and will be there for us. Because of his forsakenness, he is there when we feel we have no God. In our own dark Fridays, our own dark days, he understands. There is no place he has not been, and no place he cannot enter with his gentle presence. We may not sense him at the time, but he is there.
May a sense of that presence, even in the darkness, be your experience in this difficult season and beyond.
By Mary Harwell Sayler —
Studying Exodus and remembering how God led His people safely through the wilderness brought to mind questions about how God leads us. Sometimes it’s hard to know! Discernment doesn’t always come easily, and we never totally “arrive,” but if we’re truly seeking, we will find markers along the way to keep us going now and into eternity.
Questions for any Exodus
How do you follow a cloud
through desert storms
or rainy days or skies
as grey as the face
of a heart attack happening?
How do you follow a fire
at sunset when the sky glows
with more than you know
and your feet are too tired
to walk one moment more?
How do you track the steps
of God, Who’s apt
to double back and pick up
a horde of slaves, a lost
lamb, a new Baby in a manger
in need of a diaper change?
Many of you know that Jeff Johnson is one of my favourite musicians and I thought that you would enjoy listening to some of his music during this Holy Week. He is generously making much of it available for free through Easter… but I hope you will buy it to support his ongoing ministry.
A GOOD FRIDAY SELAH REFLECTION (Video)
This YouTube video is a short (13 minutes) presentation of Jeff performing music in his home studio combined with the art of Michael O’Brien.
LAUDS
A new vocal album that is free to download through Easter. I love this album!!! It is also available to stream for free on YouTube. After Easter (4/12), the album will be available on CD as well as through iTunes, AppleMusic, Amazon, Spotify, etc.
ArkMusic / Bandcamp: https://jeffjohnsonarkmusic.bandcamp.com/album/lauds or:
SELAH AUDIO REFLECTIONS
Many of you are already familiar with this series which Jeff continues to add to. While they can be purchased, they are also now available to stream for free on my YouTube channel.
Selah Service / Bandcamp: https://selahservice.bandcamp.com/
Or:
JESUS IS RISEN
A lyric YouTube video featuring a song that reflects the road to Emmaus story in Luke 24.
Lack can be a good thing.
Enough in itself
when we focus on the plentiful,
the gifts still amongst us.
Do we not remember
how the fullness of bread
forms itself from yeast
and warmth
and the soft kneading hands
of love’s attentiveness.
Might we,
in our lack
measure what we have,
count the things remaining
here at our disposal.
The stuff at hand
to give yet
in ways we hadn’t imagined
or considered in our plenty.
Yes, our palms might sweep across
an emptying shelf
find an egg, flour, rice
basics to make nourishment
and then our hands
might find feet
to lace in shoes
in which to walk
with sole intent
to our neighbour’s door.
Yes, did we ever think
the gifts we are given
were to keep.
Perhaps this is the rainy day
for which we have been hoarding our treasures.
What indeed happens to the
things we don’t forfeit.
I know there is much I’ve thrown out
from too much excess
and a spare shelf
might instead
clear a path for miracles.
________________________________
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
March 2020
by Christine Sine
With great embarrassment I realized this weekend that in my zeal to get The Gift of Wonder Online Retreat launched before Holy Week, and my even greater zeal to update our resource lists for Holy Week, and add all the wonderful suggestions for navigating Holy Week at home that I have been sent, I almost forgot to work out what I would do for my own Holy Week observances. Unfortunately I suspect that this is the case for many church leaders whose focus is on providing resources for their congregations rather than themselves.
So on Saturday I sat down and mapped out my Holy week trying to integrate my love of the traditional practices with my concerns for all we share the planet with during this COVID-19 pandemic.
First I realized that there awe inspiring practices I want to make sure continue to be at the forefront of my mind each day
Gratitude
A centering prayer
A time of quiet contemplation
An awe and wonder walk
These are the mainstay of my spiritual life, but I also realize that for this special week I need special practices that help ground me in my faith for another year. After all this is the week around which all Christian faith revolves. We need to take it seriously for ourselves, our committees and our churches, no matter where we might be celebrating it. So here is what I am thinking:
Palm Sunday
Yesterday I planned to initiate 2 practices for this week and I still might get to them, but then on Saturday I was sent the Palm Sunday colouring template above by Sujatha Pichamuthu Balasundaram, in India. She has written a great post on The Privilege of gratitude and will send you the template to colour if you are still interested. I don’t usually like colouring but this experience was different. It helped to focus my contemplation for the morning. As I coloured it my heart ached for all the vulnerable people in world and for all those who are struggling with fears, anxieties and the horrors of this pandemic.
And that, not surprisingly reminded me of my post from several years ago The Subversive Walk of Holy Week.
I am hoping that celebrating Palm Sunday and Easter in a COVID-19 reality has helped all of us rethink why we follow Jesus and what we hope to get out of it. We might have started with a cheer and a shout, but now we are scared. We don’t understand what is happening yet in the midst of our anxieties and laments we know this is the only way to go.
AsI think about that N.T. Wright’s words in a recent Tim article come to mind:
It is no part of the Christian vocation, then, to be able to explain what’s happening and why. In fact, it is part of the Christian vocation not to be able to explain—and to lament instead. As the Spirit laments within us, so we become, even in our self-isolation, small shrines where the presence and healing love of God can dwell. And out of that there can emerge new possibilities, new acts of kindness, new scientific understanding, new hope.
I wonder if this is the real and subversive message of Palm Sunday and Easter for us this year. We don’t understand what is happening or why. In some ways we too feel betrayed maybe even abandoned. Yet we know we serve a God of love.
We must be willing to sit in that tension. We are lamenting what we have already lost but are starting to see glimmers of new possibilities, new acts of kindness and new hope for the future.
Lacey Brown’s recent questions on the COTA Facebook page are so pertinent at the moment:
- What does loving our neighbor mean in this time of pandemic?
- What does it cost us to love and serve?
- How do we “go out” while staying put?
And we are seeing so many good responses of neighbourliness, compassion, generosity and caring are already emerging. Like what Morgan Schmidt is doing in Bend Oregon where she created the first Pandemic Partners group with the motto: It’s simple – if you need help, ask. If you can help, respond out of the goodness of your heart. It has given birth to a wave of similar groups across the country.
Then there are the people buying groceries for elderly neighbours, sewing masks for hospital workers and making lunches to be distributed to the children who rely on school lunches for their main meal of the day. Even those who stand outside their homes each evening “making a joyous noise” to honor health care workers and first responders are in some ways being subversive. So many possible ways for us to reach out when everything within us is telling us to stay hidden and think only of our own safety.
“What does loving your neighbor look like for you in this time of pandemic?”
Just asking the question has a certain subversiveness to it and I pray that as we begin this walk through holy week together that you will willingly respond with the same subversive spirit that Jesus has always asked of his followers. These are days of anguish just like Jesus lived in and Jesus’s great example to us in times of anguish is humility, service and love.
The beauty is that Jesus, in his humanity, sees and knows all of us. . . the flawed humanity that surrounds him. . . the flawed humanity of each of us. . . and he sees it and he forgives it, and loves us, and gives his blessing to all of us as he clops along the dusty road toward his confrontation with power, his time of trial, his abandonment, his death and finally his resurrection.
So I hope that this Palm Sunday you are not just waving palms on the sideline but are actively following Jesus down that dusty road towards Jerusalem.
So if you are still in need of ideas for the rest of Holy Week:
Palm Sunday was a busy day for me – and on top of that I preached for COTA. but I am so glad that I have been forced to rethink Holy Week this year and consider how I will walk with Jesus over the next few days.
Holy Week
So my Palm Sunday practice has now become Holy Week practices.
I want to create a quarantine rainbow window to hang in our front window and I hope to add some more as the week goes by. This was not just fun to do but also a powerful meditative prayer practice – We might be stuck inside, but we can still share love and light from our windows in the form of rainbows! 
. And we can pray for all those at the front lines as we do so. Alternatively you might like to create yard art in places that neighbours can see and be blessed by it.
Lilly Lewin suggested planning a parade around your house or yard for Palm Sunday. I read her post just after reading about the #makeajoyfulnoise movement that started in Italy but has swept around the world. People stand outside their houses or on their balconies and “make a joyful noise” in solidarity with health care workers, first responders and other vulnerable people in their community. What a great practice I thought… and it can begin with my around the house Palm Sunday parade. Here in Seattle it is meant to be at 8pm but I was wondering if an earlier time so that kids can be involved would be better.
Maundy Thursday
I was particularly drawn to this “at home”version of stripping the altar – Stripping the Table instead and am looking forward to doing it on Thursday
Good Friday
Make hot crossed buns. In Britain, Australia and New Zealand hot crossed buns are an important symbol of Easter. They are particularly pertinent to Good Friday so my plan is to make some on Good Friday morning for us to enjoy over the weekend. And to lighten the mood of this very somber day you might like to start by listening to this nursery rhyme.
My second Good Friday practice is Stations of the Cross. This year I have downloaded Scott Erickson’s templates and plan to spread them around the house. Or I might gather all the crosses we have around the house and plan a meditation around them.
Also hot off the press that might upend all my plans is this virtual Stations of the Cross REIMAGINED adapted from Lilly Lewin’s great resource in the Godspace resource list, by Ed Goode a pastor in Cincinnati, OH. It just went online last night. Lilly says: He made them digital! With beautiful videos, actions and responses and ways to pray the traditional stations of the cross in community on line.
Easter Sunday
I feel a little nervous about sharing anything of what I plan to do for Easter Sunday, seeing how easily my Palm Sunday observances were upended. At this point I am thinking of doing some garden planting in the hope and anticipation of the resurrection. I suspect that other practices will come together as the week progresses so keep your eyes and ears open
And have a blessed Holy Week.
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