by Christine Sine
This Good Friday prayer which I wrote several years ago, and the image that goes with it is one of my favorites, if one can say such a thing about this awful day in the life of Jesus.
Find a quiet place where you can reflect for a few minutes on these last days of Jesus life.
Look at the photo – Jesus tears are our tears, his suffering is our suffering.
What comes to your mind as you gaze upon this image?
Now read the prayer. What is your response?
by Christine Sine
Here is the good news. Out beyond the world of exclusion, and rejection and hostility, there is on offer a world of welcome that sees the other not as threat or competitor but as cohort on the pilgrimage of humanity. That alternative world of welcome is signed by bread and by wine; but it is known by lives that reach out and touch in order to heal and transform. (Walter Brueggemann: A Way Other Than Our Own 85)
How easily during this Holy Week we focus on the despair and betrayal, conflict and exclusion. How hard it is for many of us to find hope. And this year the grief over what has happened in Paris to Notre Dame Cathedral seems to spread a pall of smoke over all our good intentions and unfulfilled dreams.
Yet Notre Dame will be rebuilt. It is still structurally sound we are told. Life will emerge from the ashes, and it will be stronger and probably more beautiful than ever, but it will take a long time.
Notre Dame seems to stand as a symbol of what this week is about. Out of death life emerges, out of the crucifixion of our hopes a greater hope emerges.
What do you hope for this week? In what ways will you welcome God’s alternative world of love and hope, of generosity and freedom?
by Christine Sine
It’s Holy Week. Jesus is getting ready – not for the cross but for resurrection. “For the joy that was set before him” he willing planted the seed of his body so that walls could be broken down and new life could emerge. These words from my post yesterday continue to resound in my mind. How am I getting ready for the resurrection? How am I getting ready for the season of new life and joy that is in front of me, of all of us? Where do I already see glimpses of that new world, with Jesus the gardener right there sowing and planting and cultivating?
I think we so easily get stuck at the cross. It is as though our hopes and dreams never find life and birth because we, like the disciples don’t really believe that resurrection and new life is possible
Join the Awe and Wonder Challenge
This year for the season of Easter which extends from Easter Sunday to Pentecost, here on Godspace, we have chosen the theme “Season of Awe and Wonder” and I want to invite you to join us. Our daily experience of life, God and God’s world are meant to inspire us with awe and wonder. Our failure to notice the miracles around us is a failure of the spirit as well as the sense.
So let’s see if we can awaken our spirits as well as our senses this year.
Let’s take notice of the awe and wonder sightings around us.
See if you can notice six awe inspiring things each day.
Keep an awe and wonder journal over the next six weeks.
Write about them in your journal. Make a collage or sketch. Take a photo and paste it in your journal… send your inspiring ideas to us so that others too can enjoy the delight of what you are experiencing and hopefully enter into more of the joy of our awesome God too.
Get Your Dose of Awe and Wonder
Where are you awed by the presence of Jesus in your life and neighborhood? Where do you feel the awe inspiring thrill of what Jesus is giving birth too?
Not surprisingly this theme is motivated in part by my book The Gift of Wonder. In Chapter 2 where I talk about awe and wonder, the exercise at the end of the chapter has the following suggestions:
- Go for a walk and savor the experience with all your senses – listening, looking, tasting, touching and smelling what you encounter.
- Look through the lens of your camera or phone. What new perspectives does this bring to the scene?
- Pick up an unusually shaped rock or leaf or shell. What caught your attention? Hold it in your hand. How does it feel? What does it remind you of?
- Now find a quiet place to reflect. Use your crayons and permanent markers to create a pattern on your found item. What does this small piece of creation teach you about God?
- What else triggered a sense of awe in you today? Was it an unexpected smile, children playing or an inspiring story?
It’s not too late for our special discount on The Gift of Wonder bundle. Order today. This is only available through Godspace.
Awe Begets Awe
The more we notice the awe inspiring nature of God’s world around us, the more awe inspiring and wonderful it seems. Suddenly the resurrected Jesus appears in our midst and we feel more alive than we ever have before.
And it’s not just nature that comes alive with awe and wonder either. Suddenly we are awed by the presence of Jesus in the people we meet or pass in the street. Stories of refugees inspire us with their resilience and hope in the face of disaster. Look at this amazing photo – I am awed by what desperate people will do in their hope for a better life. And I am inspired by what they are willing to endure. How much discomfort am I willing to put up with for the better life that Christ offers me I wonder?
The only thing stronger than fear is hope
What fills you will awe as you look forward to the resurrection of Jesus?
What gives you hope?
Where did you get your dose of awe and wonder today?
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by Christine Sine
This week as we pass through the last few days of Lent and walk with Jesus towards the cross, I continue to reflect on my Lenten garden. This week my garden has not changed much, at least not on the surface. Yet hidden beneath the surface new life is germinating. Yesterday I sprinkled wildflower seeds over the garden. Then I watered the seeds, and now I hope to watch them grow.
It’s Holy Week. Jesus is getting ready – not for the cross but for resurrection. “For the joy that was set before him” he willing planted the seed of his body so that walls could be broken down and new life could emerge.
My actions have been inspired by the magnificent photos of Californian desert landscapes bursting into bloom in ways that they have not done for decades. Such beauty thriving where we thought there was only barrenness and lifelessness. Such beauty that has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to drive for hours out into the desert to see. Hundreds and thousands of people who will never be quite the same because of the little bit of God’s beauty that they have gazed on in awe and wonder.
What are the seeds that you need to plant in your life and community to restore desert landscapes of conflict and violence? Or perhaps it is to restore relationships that have been damaged by greed or lack of forgiveness.
Breaking Down Walls Isn’t Enough
It is not enough to break down walls I realize. Scarred and damaged landscapes where walls have been broken down can be transformed into places of beauty and inspiration, but only if we plant new seeds and nurture them into new life. Seeds need to be planted in the places where walls once stood.
Don’t forget: It’s Holy Week. Jesus is getting ready – not for the cross but for resurrection. “For the joy that was set before him” he willing planted the seed of his body so that walls could be broken down and new life could emerge.
Soil that is left uncovered becomes a dust bowl, or it can spread deserts as we have seen in North Africa where the Sahara desert slowly and relentlessly expands each year. Yet even here there is hope. Last week I read about the dozens of countries that have been working to plant a “great green wall” across Africa.
The tree-planting project, which has been dubbed The Great Green Wall of Africa, stretches across roughly 6,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) of terrain at the southern edge of the Sahara desert, a region known as the Sahel.
The region was once a lush oasis of greenery and foliage back in the 1970s, but the combined forces of population growth, unsustainable land management, and climate change turned the area into a barren and degraded swath of land.
Over 12 million acres (5 million hectares) of degraded land has been restored in Nigeria; roughly 30 million acres of drought-resistant trees have been planted across Senegal; and a whopping 37 million acres of land has been restored in Ethiopia – just to name a few of the states involved.
Byproducts of the restored landscape include many groundwater wells refilled with drinking water, rural towns with additional food supplies, and new sources of work and income for villagers, thanks to the need for tree maintenance.
What walls have you broken down during this season of Lent that need to be replanted with life giving plants?
Plant A Seed A Day.
Would you commit to plant one seed a day of love and kindness or generosity over the season of Easter? That I think is all that it would take for us to see our world transformed in ways that we cannot imagine.
Last week I also read about Jadav Payeng, the Indian man who has nurtured 1,360 acres of forest on what was once a barren landscape devastated by erosion. He has planted a tree a day for 40 years. After almost four decades of growth, his forest is now inhabited by hundreds of elephants, Bengal tigers, rhinos, boars, deer, reptiles, and birds.
“It’s not as if I did it alone,” Paying told NPR. “You plant one or two trees, and they have to seed. And once they seed, the wind knows how to plant them, the birds here know how to sow them, cows know, elephants know, even the … river knows. The entire ecosystem knows.” (Read more).
Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by the task ahead. Breaking down walls, creating new bridges of love and caring seems impossible yet planted seeds do sprout and grow, just as the seed of Jesus’ life was planted and grew into a mighty tree. Seeds can grow into might trees that send out flowers and produce more seeds that spread. It is possible to bring change and transform barren landscapes into places where life flourishes.
Prayerfully watch the video below. Allow the inspiration of Jadav Payeng’s life to seep into your soul. What seeds might God be asking you to plant to bring new life to places where walls once stood?
This is the second Holy Week post I wanted to repost this year. Again it is one that I return to often, especially at this season. As you know I love gardening and as I get out in my garden in springtime, and watch the resurrection story being lived out all around me, I love to reflect on this walk that Jesus took. It is so impacting for me that I adapted it for my book The Gift of Wonder. I encourage you as you get out into the God’s garden world that you too might reflect on this wonderful journey that Jesus too, no matter whether you are moving into spring or autumn.
She Thought He Was The Gardener
In 1511, the German artist Albrecht Dürer fashioned a woodcut of Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the resurrected Jesus as depicted in John 20:15. She has come to the garden tomb looking for Christ’s body, instead she finds a very much alive Jesus and she thought he was the gardener.
This phrase is not a throw away line. It is of cosmic significance! Jesus is indeed the gardener of the new creation.
In the book of Genesis, God creates the garden of Eden, and sculpts Adam and Eve out of its soil to tend and care for it. (Genesis 2:15). It is here that God, the cosmic gardener, comes to walk, to enjoy and interact not just with the caretakers but with all creation. (Genesis 3:8) When Adam and Eve sin they are expelled not just from the garden but also away from this beautiful, intimate relationship they once enjoyed with God.
Journey from the Garden of Suffering
Fortunately God did not abandoned creation or those created to look after it. The journey of Holy week is a journey back into the garden of God.
Jesus suffering began in the garden of Gethsemane, a garden where his agony is poured out in drops of blood like sweat, that seep into the earth. His pain is symbolic of the pain and suffering that became a part of Adam and Eve’s lives when they were expelled from the garden of Eden.
Journey Through the Garden of Death
On Good Friday there is another garden. Jesus, the second Adam, dies at Golgotha and John notes: in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden. (John 19:41) The garden is a place of death, and Jesus death like the planting of a seed: Unless a seed is planted in the soil and dies it remains alone, but its death will produce many new seeds, a plentiful harvest of new lives (Jn 12:24).
Journey Into the Garden of Resurrection
Yet here in this garden, as in all gardens, new life emerges, because gardens are places of life and resurrection too. As the gospel of John tells the story, and the artist Durer pictures it, Jesus very fittingly and beautifully appears to Mary Magdalene as the gardener. This is the garden of the resurrection, the new creation garden where the new world of God is revealed in all its glory and everything once more flourishes.
Whereas the Genesis story begins in paradise (a garden) and ends in our present garden world of pain and suffering, the Easter story begins in the garden of pain and suffering and ends in a garden of wholeness and flourishing, a new paradise in which we are once more able to walk intimately with our God and find abundant provision. In this new garden Jesus, the head gardener, once more invites us to be who God created us to be – stewards of all creation, tending this new paradise of wholeness and abundance so that it once more flourishes for all the creatures of the earth to enjoy.
In Isaiah 65 and again in Revelation 21 we see beautiful pictures of this new garden of God. Life and freedom, wholeness and abundance flourish and we look forward in hope to its completion.
Can We Cooperate With Jesus The Gardener?
The challenge we face is to cooperate with Jesus the gardener in the work of this garden. In many ways God’s new garden is still in its infancy, and like any newly formed garden, needs to be tended in order to flourish. Soil must be fertilized, seeds planted, watered and nurtured. To see it completed we must willingly journey with Jesus from the garden of Gethsemane with its struggle and suffering, through the garden of death to the new life that begins in the garden of the resurrection.
The old Adam and Eve were excluded from the Garden of Eden by a barrier of angels with flaming swords. Jesus the new Adam, ripped apart the barrier with his death and stands ready to welcome us into the new paradise garden. The barrier that separated us from the holy place of intimacy with God and God’s world has been removed. Now together with all God’s people and indeed with all God’s creation we can enter into the intimacy of relationship with God in a restored world of wholeness and abundance. We must continue to till and fertilize the soil, plant seeds of freedom and generosity and wholeness until the full glory of God’s resurrection created world is revealed.
NOTE: As an Amazon associate I receive a small amount for purchases made through the appropriate links in this post. Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
by Christine Sine
I am reposting this from several years ago because for me it is one of the most important stories to reflect on as we enter Holy Week. I return to it every year and grapple with how well my life reflect this subversive Jesus and not the domesticated Jesus we so often want to live with.
It’s Holy week and Jesus journey towards the cross has begun. Tomorrow we will process around the church on Palm Sunday, and buy our Easter eggs and hot crossed buns, diverting our attention from the real meaning of Easter to its commercialized version. How many of us are sucked in?
We Have Entered the Most Subversive Week of Jesus Life.
What is the focus of your thoughts as we head through Holy week – is it on the life, death and resurrection of Christ or is it on the upcoming Easter egg hunt and whether it will be warm enough to wear your new spring outfit? Most of us know that Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus triumphant procession into Jerusalem on donkey’s back but few of us are aware of the deeper and very subversive implications of this event. And as we walk through holy week towards the cross Jesus actions become more and more subversive. We have in fact entered the most subversive week of Jesus life.
According to Borg and Crossan’s important book The Last Week (2006), it is probable that there were two processions going on into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday – one that symbolized the Roman culture of Jesus day and the other Jesus proclaiming his upside down kingdom.
It would have been customary for Pontius Pilate the Roman governor assigned to Judea and Jerusalem to come with his soldiers to Jerusalem for Passover. His procession would have come from the west at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers – an impressive and lavish procession specially designed to impress the people to discourage potential uprisings with a visual display of imperial power: cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold.
On the other side of the city, down from the Mount of Olives in the north came Jesus and his humble procession – no pomp, no ceremony, dressed simply like the people, riding on the back of a donkey and followed by his disciples drawn from amongst the peasants and the common people. I imagine the lepers he had healed and the once blind man dancing and rejoicing with him. And there is Lazarus with Mary and Martha a living symbol of the triumph that this procession represents.
Palm Sunday by Jesus Mafa
Here was the truly triumphant procession and the true rejoicing of the season. Shouts of “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! greeted their passing. But this was a radical procession that really thumbed its nose at the Roman Empire with its power and wealth.
Then Jesus headed to the temple, overturned the tables and threw out the moneylenders proclaiming loud and clear to the religious leaders that their alignment with the power of Rom was totally unacceptable to God. And he caps the week off with a Passover meal, not revealing himself as an emperor messiah his followers and even his disciples were hoping, but washing feet, indelibly imprinting on his disciples this final image of a slave, the last loving act of an upside down king.
This week brought the savage conflict between the kingdom of God and the empire of Rome to a head. Not just a theological statement but a political one as well. Jesus’ belief in the liberating, inclusive, non-violent, peace-seeking kingdom of God was over against the oppressive, greedy, elite-loving, peasant-starving kingdom of Rome. No wonder his was so angry with the Temple hierarchy – the chief priest, the elders and the scribes – who had become servants of the empire and not of the God’s kingdom.
Armenian tile – Painter unknown
Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem was obviously headed for a collision with the powerful Roman empire – a collision that would cost his life and change history forever. Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem may have begun with crowds shouting Hosanna but it ends with Good Friday and the apparent triumph of the powers of the Roman Empire and of Satan. It does not end with a gold crown but with a crown of thorns. Jesus triumphal entry ends with his willingness to take into himself all the pain and suffering of our world so that together we can celebrate the beginning of a new procession on Easter Sunday – a procession that leads us into God’s banquet feast and the wonder of God’s eternal world.
Which Procession are you a part of?
The question for all of us as we walk with Jesus from Palm Sunday to Good Friday is: Where is our allegiance? Are we part of that ragamuffin discipleship band following Jesus fully aware that we are on a collision course with the values of our secular culture? Do we only want to follow Jesus when we think he promises wealth, power and happiness. Have we so misunderstood him and his purpose that we are ready to turn against him when he turns out not to be who we thought he was?
Perhaps, we’re not part of Jesus’ procession at all. Perhaps we’re standing at the other gate, cheering for the symbols of empire, enthusiastically, supporting our own idea of a messiah, that looks more like the Roman emperor than the humble servant Jesus. Dazzled by power, attracted to wealth, wanting to identify with the victors, not the vanquished, hoping to be counted as one of the elites of our time.
Actually most of us are probably part of both processions – wanting to follow this Jesus whom we find so attractive yet whom we don’t fully understand but also caught up in the excitement of Easter egg hunts and spring fashion displays.
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.
NOTE: As an Amazon associate I receive a small amount for purchases made through the appropriate links in this post. Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
by Lilly Lewin
I posted this last year, but it’s one of my favorite ways to pray during Holy Week. Using my coffee cup! (or it can be a cup of tea, or even a glass of water! ) I’ve updated it for 2019. If you are looking for a way to engage the final week of the life of Jesus, find a cup and use it as a prayer tool to help you draw closer to Jesus between now and Easter!
Praying with your Cup for Holy Week
Inspired by the writings of Joyce Rupp
How are you feeling about Holy Week this year? As you look towards Easter have you drawn closer to Jesus in the last few days and weeks, or are you feeling like you have been running and running and your cup is now totally empty?
Is your spiritual cup over flowing with energy and gratitude? or are you looking into an empty cup that is dry and needs filling?
What do you need in your cup as you look towards Easter Sunday this year?
Jesus talks a lot about cups in his ministry…
Giving a cup of cold water to the least of these Matthew 10: 40-42
Sharing in his cup of suffering when the disciples want a special place of honor Matthew 21:21-23
Drinking and sharing in the cup of the New Covenant and the cup of salvation at the Last Supper
And asking God to remove the cup of suffering from him in the Garden of Gethsemane
This week in the midst of it all, use a cup as your prayer tool.
A coffee cup. A red solo cup, a tea cup or even a paper cup. Allow God to speak to you about your life with him as you drink from your cup. You might choose a special cup just for Holy Week or you might just see which kind of cup you end up with as you do your prayer focus each day. Allow Jesus to use that cup of coffee, tea or water to be a symbol of where you are on your journey.
Allow Jesus to refresh you as you drink.
Allow Jesus to interrupt you in the midst of your day, in the midst of a meeting to remind you of the cup of salvation or his cup of suffering or your need for his living water.
Even a Starbucks cup can remind you to pray …for the barista, for the other customers in line, for the farmers who grew the coffee, for those who might be suffering for lack of coffee, or for lack of care due to exploitation of the industrial complex. Hum…the possibilities!
Check out the daily prayers below. Use your cup of coffee, tea etc to draw you closer this last week before Easter!
Take the time to pause and reflect and walk with Jesus on his Way of Suffering. And know that his desire in all of this is to refresh you and provide you with a cup that is overflowing with his love and grace joy and mercy even in the midst of all the busyness!
You can do these short meditations/reflections on your own, with your family, or even as a youth group activity individually or all at one time.
1. Palm Sunday: Cup of Praise. Cheers or Jeers? As you hold your cup consider where your heart is. Are you cheering with the crowd today or are you feeling more like a jeering Pharisee? Are you pouring out praises or curses on those around you? As you drink from your cup today, take time to praise and thank Jesus for the things He is doing in your life. As you drink from cups today pray “hosanna, blessed is the king who comes in the Name of the Lord”
2. Monday: Cup of Forgiveness, A Confession. What do you need to ask forgiveness for? Talk to God about this. Allow God’s love to fill you up today.
3. Tuesday: The Cup of Change. The money changers were cheating people and blocking the way to prayer in the temple. What might be blocking you today? Many of us have cups of coins at home where we collect change. Gather the change and give the change to a local charity. or to a homeless person, or someone you know who is in need.
4. Wednesday: The Cup of Betrayal. Judas plans to betray Jesus and give him up to leaders who were jealous and afraid of Jesus and his teaching. As you drink from your cup today, have you felt betrayed or have you been betrayed by anyone? Pray for this person or situation and ask Jesus to help you forgive and heal. What about you? Have you betrayed anyone? Talk to God about this and ask for forgiveness. Are there ways you have betrayed Jesus in your life? Talk to Him about this and allow Jesus to forgive you.
5. Thursday: The Cup of Remembrance ….”when you drink this cup remember me” Jesus
The cup of the new covenant …as you drink from your cup today, Consider the last supper. Think about Jesus serving his disciples through washing their feet. Picture them around the table celebrating the Passover. What does washing someone’s feet look like in 201? How can you serve someone today?
6. Friday: The Cup of Suffering. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane that God would remove the cup of suffering from him. But Jesus was willing to take the cup for each of us. Any thing in your life you wish God would remove? Talk to God about this. Any areas of suffering where you need healing? Ask Jesus to heal you. Take time to pray for
those around the world who are suffering. Pray for those who drink from cups of suffering on a daily basis. Places like Syria, the US southern border, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, Sudan, Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Haiti, etc.
7. Saturday: The Empty Cup. Loss. The disciples hadn’t understood that Jesus had to die. They hadn’t planned on losing their friend. And they were afraid that they might die too. Look at your empty cup. Have you suffered a loss this week, this month, this year? Allow Jesus to be with you in that loss. Sit with the empty cup and give the loss to Jesus. What fears are in your cup today? As you hold your cup picture Jesus holding your fears. Give your loss and your fear to Jesus.
8. Sunday: Cup of Resurrection and New Life. As you drink from your cup today thank Jesus for the New Life that is in you ask Him to show you glimpses of resurrection and hope today and in the days to come. What things in nature, or in other people give you hope? How can you bring resurrection/hope to someone today?
Extras: Monday after Easter: The Cup of What is Next? The disciples now had a new reality, Jesus was no longer dead! For some this was exciting, for others like Peter, it made life uncertain. So he goes back to what he did before, fishing! What were they supposed to do now? How do they live? They were being invited into a new life of resurrection, a new life of living out the ways of Jesus. As you drink from your cup today, talk to Jesus about any doubts, fears or uncertainties you have about what is next in your life. Ask Jesus to show you his great love in the middle of the questions and the waiting on what is next. Remember that like Peter, Jesus has a call and plan for you and loves you more than you can even imagine!
Have a wonderful Holy Week! Drink deeply of that Great Love!
©lillylewin and ©freerangeworship freerangeworship.com
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