by Christine Sine
It’s Holy week. Yesterday we progressed around the church with our palm fronds singing hosanna, reminding ourselves of Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem. From here we walk with Jesus towards the cross through what I have in previous years called the most subversive week of Jesus life. In the past I have said that Jesus walk through Holy week begins with this triumphal entry and ends at the cross.
Today as I helped plant our spring vegetables, I was reminded that it does not really end at the Cross at all, it ends in the new life of the kingdom. It is very easy for us to get stuck at the cross, focus our attention on Jesus’ death and allow the true wonder of Easter to escape us.
Unless a grain of wheat is planted in the ground and dies, it remains a solitary seed. But when it is planted, it produces in death a great harvest. (John 12:24 The Voice)
Death gives birth to life. I don’t plant my seeds and then forget about them.
Are we stuck at the cross in the throes of death when God wants us to burst out of the tomb into new life? Are we stuck at the cross, unaware that the new life of the kingdom is bursting out around us?
Jesus endured the cross, he didn’t revel in it as we sometimes seem to. He looked ahead to the joy of a new world breaking into ours.
Don’t get me wrong. I love to walk the stations of the cross on Good Friday. I love to remind myself of the agony that Jesus went through in order to break the bonds of sin to bring us all to freedom, but I don’t want to stop there. I don’t want to live there in the heartbreak and despair.
The joy of Easter is not Good Friday, but Easter Sunday. This is the end of Jesus subversive walk. This is the place we are meant to live. Not on the cross, not in the darkness of the tomb but in the liberating light of God’s new world.
I want to enter into the new life of God, and bring that newness into the lives of those around. I want to see it burst forth into the creation that is still waiting with groaning, looking forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. (Romans 8:21, 22)
Easter Sunday ushers in 50 days of celebration of resurrection life but for most of us by the time the sun sets on Easter Sunday we seem to have forgotten about it completely. We are back to life as usual, just as the disciples were.
In Acts 10:39-42 we read
“And we apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a cross, but God raised him to life on the third day. Then God allowed him to appear, not to the general public, but to us whom God had chosen in advance to be his witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he ordered us to preach everywhere and to testify that Jesus is the one appointed by God to be the judge of all—the living and the dead.
The Cross, the empty tomb are not the important events of Easter, the living presence of God in the resurrected Jesus is. It wasn’t the empty tomb that transformed the disciples and the women who followed him, it was Jesus appearing to them, eating with them, interpreting the scriptures for them. They met the risen Christ in the 50 days after Easter, and it changed their lives so that they went out not just talking about the things Jesus did, but living them.
What Is Your Response?
My challenge to all of us today is: will we hang around long enough to enter into the full joy of the risen Saviour? Will we hang around long enough to encounter the living Christ? When Easter Sunday is over will we be back to life as usual or are we ready to encounter Jesus over the next 50 days, which is the true season of Easter, and have our lives radically changed and redirected as a result?
Watch the video below and think about how during this Holy week you can get ready to “light the world” in the coming days.
“It is ourselves that we must spread under Christ’s feet, not coats or lifeless branches or shoots of trees, matter which wastes away and delights the eye only for a few brief hours. But we have clothed ourselves with Christ’s grace, with the whole Christ-“for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ-so let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet.” ~Andrew of Crete 8th c
Not fig leaves or animal skins, desperately sown
after eating forbidden fruit, to cover our sin and nakedness.
This time it’s God’s Lamb shedding his blood,
giving his life, for the life of the world.
Riding on a donkey’s back
Jesus, our King and Savior,
triumphantly enters Jerusalem.
Those who line the way, caught up in the moment,
spread coats and lifeless branches under his feet.
Joyfully proclaiming,
“Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
–the king of Israel!”
It’s different this time…
no animal skins to cover our nakedness…
no palm branches, coats or cloaks
to throw under his feet.
We, the baptized, are clothed with Christ’s grace,
unmerited favor and mercy,
dressed finer than even the wildflowers.
Called to put on the whole Christ
summoned, if we will, to spread our whole selves,
not coats or lifeless branches, costing nothing, under his feet.
Clothed with the whole Christ, made new,
we commit ourselves, like him,
to God’s way, acquiesce to God’s will,
and in doing so find peace, joy, purpose.
“ Let us spread ourselves like coats under his feet”.
by Lilly Lewin,
Wine, Cheese, Chocolate and Jesus! This has been our invitation to thinplace for the past few years. My husband Rob and I have hosted a thinplace gathering in our home in Cincinnati, Napa Valley and now here in Nashville. thinplaceNASHVILLE happens on Sunday nights. We start with dinner, sometimes a potluck, wine and cheese, and always chocolate. After dinner, we move from the table to the living room and I pass out clipboards, copies of the scripture and any art supplies that folks want to use. The second part of our gathering is a time for journaling and art based off a passage of scripture. We open by praying a psalm together and then doing a lectio divina on a passage usually from one of the Gospels.
We listen to a passage in two translations, one being The Message. After listening to the passage and allowing the Holy Spirit to highlight something for us, we have 30-45 minutes to just be with the passage and be with God. I write several questions to consider while journaling and I have art supplies if people want to create a response to the passage. During this time, there is a peaceful instrumental playlist playing as a backdrop. Before we begin, I always remind us that there is no wrong way to do this process.
Some one might be inspired by the psalm, rather that the gospel and that’s fine. The Holy Spirit might take someone in a totally different direction than either the psalm or the gospel passage and that’s ok too. After the journaling/art time is completed we open up the space for sharing but there is no requirement to do so. During the journaling people ponder the questions, write poems, create drawings or just sit with the text. Some people use their phones to find out more about the people or places in the passage or dig a little deeper in another translation of the Bible. When everyone who wants to share has had the opportunity, we close with an experiential element that ties the story to our real lives, often it is something that we can take away to remind us of the passage or remind us to pray. I actually call these symbols and/or responses “Take Aways.”
This past week we used the lectionary passage from Ezekiel 37:1-14 as our lectio/ listening passage and had the gospel passage from John 11:1-45 the story of the raising of Lazarus as something that could be read during the journaling time. Each story focuses on bringing life back from death. The dry bones in Ezekiel need the breath of God breathed back into them. And in the story of Lazarus, Jesus commands his friend to come forth from the tomb and he does, still wrapped in his burial cloths. Both stories also remind us that we too need resurrection and to be unbound from our grave clothes.
As our closing, we passed around strips of muslin and a bowl of mixed spices: cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Each person took a strip of muslin and rolled it in the spices and then made a bracelet from the muslin strip. We are wearing these bracelets as a reminder of our need to be set free and our own need for new life and resurrection. They also remind us of the burial of Jesus and we will cut them off on Easter Sunday as a symbol of resurrection.
The grave cloth bracelet is a great take away, experiential response that you can do on your own, with your family, with your roommates, your small group or even your entire church community on Good Friday. You might even have some people over for dinner sometime during the week and talk about where they might be feeling “dead” or in need of new life. All you need are enough muslin strips (cut 10-12 inches long so they can be easily tied) some small scissors for trimming the bracelets, a bowl with a mixture of cinnamon, all spice and ground cloves. The bowl needs to be big enough to roll the strip of muslin in easily.
The grave cloth bracelet response is originally from Station 14 in my Experiential Stations of the Cross that you can download at freerangeworship.com.
Jesus is Laid in the Tomb
This all happened on Friday, the day of preparation, the day before the Sabbath. As evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea took a risk and went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. (Joseph was an honored member of the high council, and he was waiting for the Kingdom of God to come.) Pilate couldn’t believe that Jesus was already dead, so he called for the Roman officer and asked if he had died yet. The officer confirmed that Jesus was dead, so Pilate told Joseph he could have the body. Joseph bought a long sheet of linen cloth. Then he took Jesus’ body down from the cross, wrapped it in the cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone in front of the entrance. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where Jesus’ body was laid.
Mark 15:42-47
Take a strip of cloth and roll it in the spices. Now Make a bracelet with the cloth.
Allow the smell of the spices and the strip of cloth to remind you of Jesus’ death and burial.
Wear it until Easter and then cut off the bracelet and as symbol of resurrection. Or you might wear it longer and Cut it off when you feel you’ve experienced resurrection in the next few weeks.
Sitting in my home office, I’m gazing out the window at my garden sanctuary it looks a total mess. I just haven’t had the time to finish cleaning up from the winter. It’s worse this spring because I decided to only minimally remove plants from last summer/fall, choosing instead to leave them for the birds and various animals to forage over the winter months.
In the midst of the mess emerge new plants from seed left behind and scattered by my animal friends, my gardening companions. It’s fun to see just what emerges where… and when. Gazing further out I see the top of Mt. Defiance still covered with snow. Those native to this valley remind us that, if there’s still snow on Mt. Defiance, then it’s still too early to plant seeds. Yet wandering my garden I see little signs of defiance everywhere, flowers and vegetables naturally emerging after a long, cold winter.
In the book of Ecclesiastes we’re reminded that there is a season for everything. Ancient wisdom can provide general guidelines to some of those seasons, like planting, but each year brings a new interpretation of the seasons, told first by new plants bursting forth from their seed-tombs. This year I am surprised by the contrast between the amount of snow still on Mt. Defiance and the new life springing forth all over my garden. And so it is with resurrection; it catches us off guard, bringing both joy and hope. (And we’re certainly ready for that after the winter we’ve had!).
Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week is just three days away. Lent is drawing to a close as hearts turn first to the cross, and then to resurrection. Like lingering snow on Mt. Defiance, Lent continues to linger. And like those seeds bursting early from their winter grave, I’m all ready to burst forth. It’s a bit like the famous “Already, but not yet” of the gospel. Resurrection is already upon us, but so much more lies ahead – a fullness not yet realized.
Holding these two things together, I want to attempt a kind of virtual Lectio Tierra. I wrote about the practice of Lectio Tierra last August in my post, Listening to the Life of Jesus… in a Tree. For this exercise, I invite you to watch the slideshow loop of various signs of new life from my garden.
As you watch, invite God to capture your attention with one of the images.
Watch the video again but this time pause on the image that catches your attention. (just click anywhere on the video and it will pause)
- As you gaze upon this image, how does it speak to you about:
- the past?
- the present?
- the future?
- Try to put yourself or a current relationship or situation into the picture. For example, try completing a sentence or two like:
- My life is like this _____ because I also…
- The relationship I’m thinking of is like _______ because we _________ but we also ___________.
- I see this situation in this ________. Both reveal ________.
- Sit silently with what you’ve heard and expressed so far.
- End with prayer. You might begin with the outline below, then allow God to lead you further.
- “Thank you, Creator God, for the gift of both winter and spring. In them you reveal ______________. “
- “Thank you for the gift of creation and how you speak to us through the work of your hands. In particular, thank you for the image of ___________ through which you’ve shown me __________.”
- “Help me to remain alert, hearing you speak through your whole creation. Help me to take what I’ve heard today and allow its truths to sink deep into my heart. Like the changing of the seasons and new growth in the garden, change me day by day and grow me so that in each new season I reflect more of who you are and who you’ve created me to become.”
If you found this exercise helpful I invite you to take it out into your garden, local park, or with you as you walk your neighborhood. As you walk, notice God’s creation through the change of seasons. Our friends in the southern hemisphere will have a slightly different experience than those of us in the north, but the exercise will work the same.
Comment below or drop us an email and tell us how this exercise works for you in your setting. And as you go, walk in the fullness of God’s shalom.
I wanted to let you all know about the new book of meditations Rest in the Moment, that I have just published. I think this is a great book to consider using as a devotional during the Easter season. It is a compilation of some of the best Monday meditations from Godspace arranged in a form that invites you to rest, refresh and renew. The twelve meditations in this book are designed to provide moments of refreshment.
This has been a fun project to work on with photographer and graphic designer Hilary Horn and I hope you will enjoy it.
by Christine Sine
Gil George at the center of the labyrinth
Yesterday I wrote Meditation Monday – Questions from a Labyrinth. about the labyrinth I have been using during Lent and the inspiration it has given me. Many readers responded with comments about their own labyrinths and the enrichment they had given to their prayers. One uses the labyrinth in his local coffee shop, another has one on her shoulder and another reader creates quilted labyrinths.
A few days later, Shelby Selvidge contributed this post: Nature as A Living Labyrinth with a lot more positive feedback.
These comments reminded me of some of the previous blog posts on labyrinths that others have contributed to this blog.
Gil George wrote this beautiful labyrinth prayer while visiting his wife in hospital a few years ago. I particularly love the lines:
I walk towards and away from the center as I follow
A path laid out by someone else, a path walked by others.
Kim Balke wrote this powerful reflection after a workshop with a doula (birth attendant). Her comment at the end is worthy of much reflection:
Every journey is special! What does that mean? Even though birthing is a well trodden path, each woman’s experience is her own- a one of a kind strength, a pure whole note carried on the wind, a sound only she can make, moving on into hello.
Celtic labyrinth
My own favourite is the labyrinth that we make out of branches at our Celtic retreat on Camano Island. We place a Celtic cross at the centre and adults and kids alike love to walk it. We also often provide templates for people to make their own labyrinths.
And for more information about labyrinths and possible ways to walk them check out this post.
In this post Brenda Warren links to a number of resources about labyrinths.
And last but certainly not least check out this neighbourhood listening walk which has a labyrinth flavour to it.
Kids making labyrinths
What are your experiences of labyrinths and how have they enriched your life?
by Christine Sine
Some of you have probably noticed that my finger labyrinth features prominently on my Lenten altar this year. It is an 11 circuit Chartres style labyrinth, so named because it is modeled after the labyrinth set in the stone floor in the nave of Chartres Cathedral in France. Throughout the season this labyrinth has sat on a stand on my prayer table, prominently displayed and ready to be taken down and used whenever I am puzzling over a challenging question. I used it to guide me through the questioning process I described in this Monday meditation. It is comforting, at times challenging but always enlightening.
To be honest when I first read about finger labyrinths when I was working on my book Return to Our Senses, this seemed a very strange way to pray. Most of the articles I read suggested that the best way to trace out a finger labyrinth is with a finger from your non-dominant hand. It seemed weird but evidently research suggests that our non-dominant hand has better access to our intuition.
Much to my surprise, I found that it really did help me focus and often brought intuitive inspiration when I was grappling with challenging questions. As I “walk” my labyrinth I still often recite the prayer above which is one I adapted from a previous one I wrote for Return to Our Senses.
This week I have gone a little further and allowed the labyrinth to inspire my journalling and my preparation for Holy week and Easter. I sketched the crude labyrinth in my journal then wrote the words that have been impressed on me over the last few weeks as a pathway for me to follow as Lent ends. Out of this I suspect will come a new practice for the coming season of Easter.
Labyrinths as Pilgrimage
Labyrinths are one of the oldest spiritual tools known to humankind, dating back at least 4000 years. They became identified with the Christian church in Europe around 350 A.D. In the Middle Ages, it is believed that walking the labyrinth was often used as a form of pilgrimage for those who could not afford the time or the money to leave their homes for an extended time to walk to the Holy Land. They walked the labyrinth with the same intentionality that pilgrims did. The inward walk was a journey toward a closer sense of the presence of God, the outward walk, a journey back into the community, taking the benefits of the walk into the ongoing journey of our lives.
In its simplest form a labyrinth walk is used as a simple form of meditation for individuals and groups. Because it requires no figuring out, one can simply walk, allow the mind to quiet, and let the body take over. We may walk, dance, or crawl the path, doing what the body calls forth; there are no rules, there is no right or wrong way.
Many churches and religious institutions, including Calvin College I know encourage their congregations and students to walk the labyrinth during Lent and Holy Week as a meditative walk toward the Cross – an alternative to Stations of the Cross for many people. Here are some ideas on how to do this and pilgrim paths in the U.K. has produced this excellent brochure for a Holy Week labyrinth walk.
Finger Labyrinths for Questioning.
A finger labyrinth is similar to a full sized labyrinth you would walk except it is on a much smaller and more portable scale. The user traces the path to the centre using your finger rather than with their feet. There are many different kinds of labyrinths differing in size and complexity. Interestingly, some of the earliest labyrinths found in Christian churches are finger labyrinths, their circuits well worn over the centuries by the passage of innumerable fingers “walking” to the center and then out again.
While modern hospitals and nursing homes now advertise large and visible outdoor labyrinths, many more healing institutions are quietly bringing finger labyrinths inside. One simple reason is that many patients are confined to beds or wheelchairs. Finger labyrinths have advantages beyond convenience and accessibility. People use finger walks not just for prayer and healing, but also to get ready for meetings, break through writer’s block, cure insomnia, and for many other reasons known only to them. They provide a legitimate path for questioning and problem solving.
I love finger labyrinths – both walking and creating them and would heartily recommend them to you. They are great because of their portability. I even have one I can carry in my pocket. There are many patterns to these so you might like to download a few and experiment with how they can help you find solutions to the questions you are grappling with you. You might just like to color your labyrinth in different colors or write the words that come to you as you walk it along the pathway.
If you have time, create your own finger labyrinth, this is a meditative exercise in itself. Part of what I love is that we can create labyrinths using whatever art medium inspires us. Here are instructions on creating a simple labyrinth, a very inspiring practice I often use in workshops.
One of my favourite set of instructions for making a finger labyrinth is from Heather Plett who has made labyrinth design a piece of art. Other method I have not tried yet is making a finger labyrinth with play dough or out of fabric. Or you might like to use this method which uses yarn, tissue paper and glue to create a very beautiful decorated labyrinth. A fun activity with kids. Alternatively, try knitting a labyrinth . There are lots of patterns out there for knitting. Here is another that looks intriguing.
What Is Your Response?
Walking labyrinths is a great distresser and finger labyrinths can be very therapeutic.
Here is a simple finger labyrinth exercise you might like to experiment with. If you don’t own a finger labyrinth, download or draw a simple pattern.
Sit in a quiet place with your hands in your lap, palms facing upward. Take a few breaths in and out until you feel at peace in your soul.
Recite the prayer above several times and relax into the presence of God
Form a question you are grappling with or use the one I suggested during Lent What am I afraid of? Place a finger from your non-dominant hand at the entrance to the labyrinth. Prayerfully ask your question. Invite the holy spirit of God to guide and instruct you on your journey.
Trace the circuit with your finger. Stay open to whatever presents itself: feelings, sensations, memories, ideas. Pause at any time to breathe, focus on a thought or memory or just to relax into the labyrinth and your questioning. At the center of the labyrinth, sense your connection to your own center and to the the centering presence of God. Acknowledge the Holy Spirit, the heavenly counselor directing your thoughts and exploration. Relax, prayer, sing. Repeat your question and wait on the Holy Spirit to guide you.
Trace your way out, staying open to whatever comes up for you. Now you might like to change you question to What would I do if I was not afraid? When your walk is done, place both hands on the labyrinth, take some deep breaths in and out, and give thanks to God for whatever you learned and experienced.
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