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.
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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.
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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
To help celebrate our upcoming theme: A Season of Awe & Wonder, we are holding a sale on a few items in our shop! We are also offering a free resource too! For the season of Easter (Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday) we are asking our authors to share about what gives them a sense of awe – be it the wonder of God’s creation or the beauty of God’s image seen in the faces of vulnerable and hurting people. Christine will share ideas from her new book, The Gift of Wonder and some of the lessons she has learned since she finished writing it. However, the best way to dive into a season of awe and wonder is with her latest book! Get your copy today together with our special set of prayer cards that incorporate prayers from the book with Christine’s photos and start your journey with us as we enter into a season of Awe & Wonder!
The Gift of Wonder Bundle : $22 , now $20.
Rest in the Moment Digital Download: $9.99 , now $7.99
Rest in the Moment. The twelve meditations in this beautiful full color book are designed to provide moments of refreshment throughout the day or week. The blending together of prayers, reflections, questions and photos invite us to pause, reset and refresh ourselves. Rest is such an important part of the rhythm of our lives, not just a weekly rest of Sabbath, but pauses of rest throughout the day to reset our focus and renew our connections to God. Even my fitbit tells me that I should relax for 2-3 minutes at regular intervals. We all need times when we pause for refreshment and renewal. Just as the night calls us to rest after a busy day and the winter calls us to rest after busy seasons of planting growth and harvest, so too does God beckon us to rest after hours of busy work.
Twenty years of gardening experience has finally been compiled in one place—in To Garden With God, a new garden manual. Practical advice for backyard gardening is interspersed with spiritual lessons about God’s good creation.
Creating a Faith Based Community Garden – Free Download!
Don’t forget our other free resources for Holy Week
I am on a bit of at high! The launch of The Gift of Wonder was amazing and your enthusiasm and affirmation of both me and the book helped make it Amazon’s #1 new release in books on religious rituals. Not quite the way I would have described it but I appreciate it anyway.
More than anything I have enjoyed the comments and photos that some of you have sent. They stir me to new creative spiritual practices and continue to enrich my faith. Arie Gort suggests this book should be read outside in the sunshine surrounded by wildflowers. I read her comment after seeing a photo of the amazing desert bloom in California last week and it made me want to take my shoes off and dance through the flowers.
This image shared by HeidiRich Payton onInstagram lighten my day but also distracted me from less enjoyable responsibilities. Please keep your images and comments coming and encourage your friends to send us their creative responses too. We are working to get them posted on The Gift of Wonder Godspace page.
I find that my own response to sharing about the book in workshops and classes is a growing delight and joy in the presence of God. My awe and wonder walks have expanded to include awe and wonder plane trips. From my window I look down at the awe inspiring landscape below me clicking my camera and thanking God for the beauty of what I am seeing. Tragically as I look around I realize that I am often the only person enjoying this beauty. Everyone else seems to have their eyes glued to their screens.
As a response to all of this, we have decided to use the theme “A Season of Awe and Wonder” for the time between Easter and Pentecost this year. We are asking our authors to share about what gives them a sense of awe – be it the wonder of God’s creation or the beauty of God’s image seen in the faces of vulnerable and hurting people. I will share ideas from The Gift of Wonder and some of the lessons I have learned since I finished writing it. If you would like to contribute to this series please let us know.
Thank you for your continued support of the Godspace ministry as well as my personal ministry. I appreciate your prayers at this time as I am feeling a little overwhelmed by the number of interviews and articles that are being requested. I particularly enjoyed this podcast with Doug Pagitt which will give you a good background to The Gift of Wonder if you are still puzzled as to what it is all about.
by Christine Sine
This week I have cheated a little. Instead of breaking down another wall, I decided to rearrange the walls in my Lenten garden. The three remaining walls now form a protective barrier across the back of the garden and in front of the barrier I have planted three crosses. Each time my eyes drifted towards my garden today, my breath caught and my gut churned as I focused on those crosses across the top of the flourishing plants. I was reminded of the pain and suffering Christ endured to make it possible for us to flourish and become whole. What a sacrifice God willingly made to see walls broken down and barriers rearranged in my life and in our world. As Lent draws towards Holy Week that is where most of our eyes are focused. For our loving, caring God no sacrifice was too great to break down the walls of hate and suffering and brokenness in our world.
Ironically I was so focused on the crosses today that it was easy for me to totally miss the beauty of the plants in front of them. Yet as I intentionally focused on the plants and marveled at their beauty, I was reminded that the full glory or God is revealed in the light of the Cross of Christ it is not the Cross itself.
Read Life Differently
I think sometimes our eyes are too focused on the cross. Our story ends on Good Friday rather than Easter Sunday. too focused. In our world too it is easy to focus on the negative, the problems rather than the solution, the images of despair rather than the glimmers of hope.
I think it is time for us to “read life differently’ to see the hope beyond despair, the glimpses of healing and wholeness in the midst of the ravages of disease and heartache, the beauty of new life where death has reigned.
I was thinking about that this week as I talked about my new book The Gift of Wonder and read through the responses people are sending me as they read the book. The joyful images I have been sent, and the comments about awe and wonder have surprised me. My own increasing joy and delight as see their creativity have spurred me to my own new expressions of awe. I have added awe and wonder plane trips to my awe and wonder walks, (yep, I am the one with the window shade open when you are trying to watch a movie on your screen) delighting in the unfolding of God’s beauty beneath me.
Awe and Wonder plane trip
A Daily Dose of Awe and Wonder
Focusing on joy invigorates and empowers us. Awe begets awe. As we take notice of the awe inspiring aspects of our world, we start to notice awe and wonder wherever we go, even in grief ravaged faces and devastated landscapes. Then our faith grows and our belief in the ability of God to transform all things is renewed.
One of my favorite go to places for good news stories is the good news network. Stories like this one about the countries across Africa that are planting a great green wall of trees, convince me that if we enter each day with a sense of awe and wonder and look for the good things God is doing our attitude towards life will change and our ability to see beyond the cross to the new world God is creating will be transformed.
What Is Your Response?
Go for a walk around your neighborhood. What catches your attention? What gives you a sense of awe and wonder? How does this make you feel? How could you incorporate a daily dose of awe and wonder to your schedule? What impact do you think it could have on your life?
Over this last week I have been posting prayers, liturgies and worship resources for Holy week. I have already posted resources for Stations of the Cross but here are some additional resources for Good Friday that I thought you might enjoy. I have interspersed them with images of the crucifixion from different cultures as I find reflecting on these remind me that Christ died for all cultures and all nations.
Celebrating at Home
Posts and Resources
- This post from Lilly Lewin: Freerange Friday: A Good Friday TakeAway has some great ideas for Good Friday.
- Also, consider downloading her Experiential Stations of the Cross.
- Scott Erickson Art shares resources for Good Friday services including Stations of the Cross.
- Take time this week to go through the sessions in the Lenten retreat: Women of the Passion at Sacred Space. “A retreat offers a chance to take a step back from the pressure of daily life, to reflect prayerfully on the current state of your relationships: with God, with the people around you, and with the world.” Very powerful!
- And if you don’t know what Good Friday is about check this.
- Crosswalk.com also provides a great history and readings for Good Friday.
- If you want to get creative: Make a Tiffany Style Cross.
- Lent and Beyond has just updated their Good Friday quotes, poems, prayers and hymns and other resources including music and devotionals for Good Friday.
- Textweek.com is always alive with wonderful resources for the season
- And from Bosco Peters in N.Z. a Good Friday liturgy
- Gone is the Light is a powerful reflective song by Steve Bell.
Aboriginal crucifixion
- Many Godspace contributors love to write prayers for each of the significant days during Easter week. Here are some that we have written in the past.
- What’s So Good About Friday – Rowan Wyatt
- The following prayer is one I wrote for Good Friday several years ago.
This is the first Good Friday prayer I wrote and still one of the most popular
The following is part of a liturgy I wrote a couple of years ago that I often return to:
Jesus you took bread and broke it,
You shared it with your friends.
As you were broken to feed us with the bread of life.
Jesus you took wine and poured it out,
Grapes crushed and drained of life.
As you were crushed and drained of your life blood.
Crucifixion Art by He Qi
Here is part of a longer liturgy designed for church or small group use:
Today we walk with Christ in the dark shadow of the cross,
Knowing we have weighed him down,
Our burdens crushed his shoulders,
His suffering is for us,
For us he willingly endured death.
Let us trust in God alone,
And walk the way of the cross together,
Let us move forward without fear into God’s eternal purposes.
Then we will never know disgrace,
And we will learn to praise our God who never abandons us.
Please check out our complete list of Godspace resources for Lent through Holy Week.
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Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
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