Diana — Page 91

EASTER! Day One

April 8, 2012 By Diana

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen, indeed!

A Prayer for Easter Sunday Morning

As we whoop and holler and celebrate the end of our journey together in Lent 2012, we will greet this magnificent morning with the beautiful words of a very special and ancient prayer called the Exsultet. It was the prayer offered by the lowest member of the clergy, in the early church, the deacon, and it was prayed when the Christ candle was re-lit following its extinguishing on Good Friday. Its origins can be traced to the lamp lighting in the synagogue and you can hear the echoes of our Jewish heritage in its language. That synagogue prayer was adapted by the early church for special times of celebration, most particularly for the annual celebration of the resurrection. On Saturday night, Christians would gather outside their places of worship to observe the Easter Vigil – that time of waiting for the hour of Christ’s rising from the dead. Then, in the very early morning, as they lit the Easter fire, the Christ candle was re-lit and the deacon would lead the congregation in this prayer as they re-entered their sanctuaries. As the people followed the candle, they would chant:

“Christ our light! Thanks be to God!”

Let us pray:

Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God’s throne!
Jesus Christ, our King, is risen!
Sound the trumpet of salvation!

“Christ our light! Thanks be to God!”

Rejoice, 0 earth, in shining splendor,
radiant in the brightness of our King!
Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!
Darkness vanishes forever!

“Christ our light! Thanks be to God!”

Rejoice, 0 holy Church! Exult in glory!
The risen Savior shines upon you!
Let this place resound with joy,
echoing the mighty song of all God’s people.

“Christ our light! Thanks be to God!”

It is truly right that we should praise you,
invisible, almighty, and eternal God, and your Son, Jesus Christ.
For Christ has ransomed us with his blood,
and paid the debt of Adam’s sin to deliver your faithful people.

“Christ our light! Thanks be to God!”

This our Passover feast, when Christ, the true Lamb, is slain. This the night when first you saved our forebears,
you freed the people of Israel from their slavery
and led them with dry feet through the sea.
This the night when the pillar of fire destroyed the darkness of sin!

“Christ our light! Thanks be to God!”

This the night when Christians everywhere,
washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,
are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.
This the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death

and rose triumphant from the grave.
Truly blessed, when heaven is wedded to earth, we are reconciled to you!

“Christ our light! Thanks be to God!”

May this Easter candle mingle with the lights of heaven,
and continue bravely burning to dispel the darkness of the night!
May the Morning Star, which never sets, find this flame still burning.
Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on all creation, Your Son who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

“Christ our light! Thanks be to God!”

Amen.

A blessed Easter Celebration to you all,

dear friends.

Thanks for taking this journey with me,

for your words of encouragement

all along the way.

I pray that we have, by the grace of God, helped each other to ‘grow together in holiness,’ as this ancient prayer so beautifully puts it.

Now may we move through Eastertide

to Pentecost,

and then out into Ordinary Time

remembering that we are

AN EASTER PEOPLE.

Thanks be to God on high for our salvation,

for our hope,

for our life!

Filed Under: Easter, God's gifts, Lenten Journey, worship

A Lenten Journey: Climbing to Calvary – Day FORTY – HOLY SATURDAY

April 7, 2012 By Diana

Romans 8:1-11, The Message

With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.

The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.

But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!

_______

Do you know there is no Gospel reading for this day?

When I looked for one – there was none to be found.

How profound is that!

On this darkest day of all – the day after death, the day before the stone is rolled away – there is literally no good news.

So I went looking through the texts for small signs of light. One of the psalms for the day was hopeful. But we’ve done a psalm two out of the last three days.

The Hebrews lesson felt slightly cumbersome for this unusual day.

And then I checked out the evening reading – Romans 8. And I found Peterson’s rendition of those opening verses and I thought..

…there it is.

The Good News cannot be kept silent, even on this day.

It cannot.

It must be proclaimed. Slithering and sliding out from under that stone and bursting into daylight, Paul’s words ‘sing and shout the victory!’

Read them again.

Hang onto them with all your might.

Store up the singin’ and the shoutin’…

’cause Sunday’s comin’!

Yes sir;

yes, ma’am –

Sunday is coming.

_______

We’re busy today, Lord. Family and friends are gathering, there’s food to fix, clothes to tend, children to wrestle to the ground to put on their bonnets and ties. But, oh Jesus – help us not to lose sight – even in the middle of all the early Easter celebrating – help us not to lose sight that you were IN THE TOMB all day long. Dead and gone – gone forever for all any of your friends knew on that lonely day. So help us to carve out a quiet corner somewhere to think about that, to reflect on the depths of your love for us, and to ready ourselves for the turning point in history. We wait with you, Jesus. Help us to wait in love and gratitude.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Lenten Journey, Wonderings in the Word

A Lenten Journey: Climbing to the Cross – Day THIRTY-NINE – GOOD FRIDAY

April 6, 2012 By Diana

Psalm 22, Today’s New International Version

For the director of music. To the tune of “The Doe of the Morning.” A psalm of David.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?

My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the praiseof Israel.

In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.

They cried to you and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

But I am a worm, not a human being;
I am scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.

“He trusts in the LORD,” they say,
“let the LORD rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him.”

Yet you brought me out of the womb;
   you made me feel secure on my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast on you;
   from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Do not be far from me,
   for trouble is near
   and there is no one to help.

Many bulls surround me;
strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

Roaring lions that tear their prey
open their mouths wide against me.

I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.

My mouthis dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay mein the dust of death.

Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
they piercemy hands and my feet.

All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.

They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.

But you, LORD, do not be far from me.
   You are my strength; come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword,
   my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
   save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

I will declare your name to my people;
in the assembly I will praise you.

You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him,
all you descendants of Israel!

For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
   before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied;
   those who seek the LORD will praise him—
   may your hearts live forever!

All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,

for dominion belongs to the LORD
and he rules over the nations.

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.

Posterity will serve him;
   future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness,
   declaring to a people yet unborn:
   He has done it!

_______

Sometimes there is a rare and ineffable beauty in desolation, a kind of purity that makes the breath catch, the heart skip.

This song is like that for me. Laced with equal parts despair and hope, Psalm 22 shakes me to the core.

It acknowledges all the devastating feelings of abandonment, isolation, and stark terror that rise to the surface when life is seriously threatened.

And yet it circles around again and again to hope, to praise, to remembrance of rescue, to faithfulness over time, to God.

The opening line pours out of Jesus as he hangs on the cross. Suspended against that darkening sky, enduring the jeers and angry retorts of bystanders, his breathing more and more laborious, Jesus speaks the holy words of his people, the cry of his ancestor David.

Jesus cried out these words in his mother tongue, the weight of it all echoing through the centuries. Eloi, Eloi…WHY?

There is no answer for Jesus. And there is not always an answer for us, either.

Yet, there is beauty in these words. There is breathtaking beauty.

As he died that day, he drew to himself all the brokenness, all the sinfulness wrought by our willfulness.

He knew, he KNOWS, that the only remedy is this outpouring of love, bright red love, in, around, through and over it all.

And to show us that love, to offer us that love –
     he had to feel what we feel,
          to endure what we endure,
               to suffer through what we must all suffer through:

that stunning sense of being alone in the universe.

And his desolation is a thing of beauty – of raw, terrible, agonizing beauty.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – John 3:16-17

_______

Beautiful Savior, thank you for pouring out our God’s divine love on the world through your very human body and blood. Thank you for sharing our pain, for subsuming our pain, for redeeming our pain. And thank you that you did all of that by enduring our pain. Completely. Your name be praised. Amen.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Lenten Journey, Wonderings in the Word

A Lenten Journey: Climbing to Calvary – Day THIRTY-EIGHT – MAUNDY THURSDAY

April 5, 2012 By Diana

Mark 14:12-25, New Living Translation

On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go to prepare the Passover meal for you?”

So Jesus sent two of them into Jerusalem with these instructions: “As you go into the city, a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you. Follow him. At the house he enters, say to the owner, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will take you upstairs to a large room that is already set up. That is where you should prepare our meal.”

So the two disciples went into the city and found everything just as Jesus had said, and they prepared the Passover meal there.

In the evening Jesus arrived with the twelve disciples. As they were at the table eating, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, one of you eating with me here will betray me.”

Greatly distressed, each one asked in turn, “Am I the one?”

He replied, “It is one of you twelve who is eating from this bowl with me. For the Son of Man must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him. It would be far better for that man if he had never been born!”

As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it, for this is my body. And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, “This is my blood, which confirms the covenantbetween God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many. I tell you the truth, I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.”

_______

“This is my body.”

“This is my blood.”

I wonder, how many times have you heard those words?

They are deeply familiar to any person who counts themselves a follower of Jesus.

Sometimes these words can lean towards rote and dead ritual.

But sometimes, many times, maybe even most times…

they are the breath of life,

the cusp of hope,

the seal of redemption –

the promise of the future.

Always, they are reminiscent of this event,
this strange evening meal with its co-mingling of the old and the new,
this mix of the expected and the bewildering.

     A mysterious expedition…
     Gathering in a tight circle...
     Wishing his betrayer had never been born…
     Blessing the bread,
          tearing it to pieces,
               parceling it out to his friends,
                    naming it his body…
     Thanking God for the wine,
          passing a single cup for them all to share,
               naming it his blood.

A sober conversation, strange, and layered with portent and sadness.

They were all in a liminal place that night, standing on the threshold of a new age, one that had not yet been seen in the entire history of the universe.

I wonder, what did they sense?

What did they guess?

Were they as clueless as ever? Loving their teacher, but eternally confounded by his cryptic words and actions?

I’ll admit to feeling more than a little sorry for them all. Because Jesus chose them, because Jesus loved them, I cannot judge them any more harshly than I would judge you or even myself. I’m pretty clueless a lot of the time.

But Jesus… well – Jesus doesn’t seem to be too concerned about their cluelessness.

He simply wants them near, all those muddle-headed friends.

Jesus wants them around him that last night. He wants to do the traditional thing together – the special foods and the special prayers and the remembering of the story.

But he also wants to teach them, right up until the very end – taking those common, oh-so-familiar things…
the bread…
and the wine…

breathing newness into them.

Breathing life,

and hope,

and redemption,

and covenant-keeping,

and LOVE into them.

For here is a very true thing, something Jesus knew about us:
what we love, we consume.

That’s who we are, we human creatures.

We chew it

and we swallow it

and we take it into our very cells

and we find what we need to do the next thing.

And these simple, elemental things, they are our very life, are they not?

They are our very life.

_______

Holy Mystery, even as we take your body and blood into ourselves, we ask you to take us into yourself. We’re weary with walking, we’re trying to stay with you – but you know our frame. You know we are weak, that our steps falter, that our intentions are far from pure, that our motives are mixed. Any one of us could be that betrayer in the room with you.

But… but we want to be fed and nourished by the good food that is you. So as we tear the bread this night, as we sip the cup – fill us to the brim with your goodness. Nourish us, that we might stand with you tomorrow. Tomorrow at the cross, and Saturday at the tomb. We need to go the whole way with you, Jesus…the whole way.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Lenten Journey, Wonderings in the Word

A Lenten Journey: Climbing to the Cross – Day THIRTY-SEVEN

April 4, 2012 By Diana

Psalm 55, Common English Bible

For the music leader. With stringed instruments. A maskilof David.

God, listen to my prayer;
don’t avoid my request!

Pay attention! Answer me!
I can’t sit still while complaining.

I’m beside myself over the enemy’s noise,
      at the wicked person’s racket,
      because they bring disaster on me
      and harass me furiously.

My heart pounds in my chest because death’s terrors have reached me.

Fear and trembling have come upon me;
I’m shaking all over.

I say to myself, I wish I had wings like a dove!
I’d fly away and rest.
I’d run so far away! I’d live in the desert. I’d hurry to my hideout,
far from the rushing wind and storm.

Baffle them, my Lord!
   Confuse their language
   because I see violence and conflict
   in the city.

Day and night they make their rounds on its walls,
and evil and misery live inside it.

Disaster lives inside it; oppression and fraud
never leave the town square.

It’s not an enemy that is insulting me—
   I could handle that.
It’s not someone who hates me
   who is exalted over me—
   I could hide from them.

No. It’s you, my equal,
my close companion, my good friend!

It was so pleasant when together we entered God’s house with the crowd.

Let death devastate my enemies;
let them go to the gravealive
because evil lives with them—even inside them!

But I call out to God,
and the LORD will rescue me.

At evening, morning, and midday
I complain and moan
so that God will hear my voice.

He saves me,unharmed, from my struggle,
though there are many who are out to get me.

God, who is enthroned from ancient days,
   will hear and humble them
      because they don’t change
      and they don’t worship God.

My friend attacked his allies,
breaking his covenant.

Though his talk is smoother than butter,

war is in his heart;

though his words are more silky than oil,
they are really drawn swords:

“Cast your burden on the LORD—he will support you! God will never let the righteous be shaken!”

But you, God, bring the wicked down to the deepest pit.
   Let bloodthirsty and treacherous people
   not live out even half their days.
      But me?

I trust in you!

_______

Have you known people whose ‘words are more silky than oil’ but are ‘really drawn swords?’

I have.

I imagine we all have.

It’s a through-the-looking-glass experience, that sense of personal betrayal when someone we thought was a friend turns out to be anything but.

This psalm feels tumultuous to me – filled with shifting emotions, feelings of betrayal juxtaposed with statements of trust in God, a sense of despair adjoining words of confidence and assurance.

I’ve had experiences that left me feeling like that – real cognitive dissonance. I thought one thing was true…

…but it turns out the opposite was true all the time.

It’s an interesting and apt choice for Holy Week. The idea of betrayal is pervasive in this last leg of the journey to Calvary, steadily increasing as we move toward that meal in the upper room and the fatal foray out into the garden afterward.

And this is most definitely a song about betrayal. That crazy-making flood of emotions that comes with the territory of such pain – the anger, the fear, the deep desire to hang onto trust even when it feels like all that is sensible is about to crash overhead.

All of that is part of this story we’re telling these weeks of Lent.

All of it.

And all of it is part of our stories, too. We have all been betrayed – in matters both great and small.

And we have all been betrayers – turning on those we say we love, including ourselves.

But there is hope on the horizon. The key to it is found in the last line –

“But me? I trust in you!”

Hard to do in the midst of such overwhelming emotions – but oh-so-necessary, oh-so-important.

I’m going to try to trust.

You, too?

_______

Trustworthy God – there are days (sometimes even weeks) when I’m not at all sure about you. Can you be trusted? Horrible things have happened. Horrible. And I feel betrayed and abandoned. Are you there? Do you care?

And then…I remember Jesus, who surely had reason to distrust everyone. But he always held onto you, didn’t he? Even at the very end, even when he felt what we all feel sometimes – that he was abandoned and alone. Even then, he committed himself to you. Will you help me to hang on when it gets dicey? Because I need help to do this trusting. Truly, I do. I need you most of all – help me to remember that, and to hang on.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Lenten Journey, Wonderings in the Word

Reflections on Mortality and Holy Week

April 3, 2012 By Diana

It only lasts a minute, maybe two.

That sense of stepping off a cliff –

when a lump rises in your throat,

and immediately catapults into your stomach.

Or maybe it’s more like being blind-sided by a phantom,

a phantom with snarling breath that blows down the back of your collar
and frizzes the ends of your hair.

You can be living your ordinary, everyday life –

driving the car, for instance.

Or having lunch with someone you love.

Or resting after minor surgery.

And wham! It hits you like a bracing splash of ice water:

death happens everywhere.

We are surrounded by it,

entangled in it,

bewitched by it.

And most of the time, we are oblivious.

Quite intentionally so, I believe.

We cover it up,

tuck it away,

move it aside.

And we do that with all kinds of things,

in all kinds of ways.

We do it with food,

or alcohol,

or television,

or reading,

or even – gasp! – writing.

It’s the spectre on everyone’s horizon,

the uninvited guest at the table,

the devilish imp around every corner.

And we don’t want to see it.

And much of the time, we don’t.

We don’t.

But then, you turn just a little,

and you cast a glance over the wrong shoulder,

you catch a glimpse
just there –
off to the side –

and the rawness of it socks you in the gut.

Two sisters, having lunch.

Best of friends, longtime traveling companions,

singing life’s song together for over 85 years.

You stop to take a picture –

and you see it.

Just there, in the sagging skin.

Or there, in the squinting struggle to see something –

anything that’s recognizable.
Or to the right – see it? – the big red walker,
just there,
the one that carries the frail, flailing, failing body
slowly and carefully from place to place.

And you know:

it won’t be long now.

Or you take a little drive,

off to find a new dress for a 90-year-old.

You go down familiar streets,

remarking on changes made here and there.

And then – there it is.

The shabby motel where he lived,

your youngest brother,

the one who hid so well –

who hid the drinking and the illness and the shame,
the one who died, far too young.

Over there –
just there –
lurking by the office,

just down from the dark, dank corridor

of his room – you spot it.

And your stomach clenches,

your eyes fill ever so briefly,

your breath catches

between the pleasantries you speak.

Or you’re driving home from the dentist

after a routine surgical procedure,

and your face begins to pound and swell.

Within hours, you look like a prize-fighter,

so you pile in the car for some urgent care.

And you see it again!
Just there,
in the bright red gauze,
the deepening purple of bruise,
the slow, constant tender aching.
No longer a wraith, but a sharp, clear reflection
in the window pane behind the surgeon’s worried face.
The ever-present visitor that no one
wants to see, to wrestle with, even to acknowledge:
we all age;
we all die.

For these intimations of mortality are all around us,

constant reminders of the ephemeral nature of our

sojourn on this planet.
No one escapes,
no one is immune,
no one is immortal.

But then…

Holy Week arrives,
right in the middle of the muddle,
amid the weariness of watching death in action,
inexorable and overwhelming.

And a tiny green thing begins to wriggle its way
to the surface of your soul.
A sprig, really.
A small, tender shoot of hope and life.
Because somehow,
in the very middle of death itself,
there is this ever-growing wick of light.
As we follow the story
to the upper room,
to the garden,
to the house of the high priest,
to the halls of Herod and Pilate,
through the narrow winding streets
of the city,
up that pathway marked by the blood of Jesus himself –
even there…
even there.

There is a whiff of green, a scent of spring.
EVEN THIS, Jesus knows.
This sinking queasiness, this revelation and recognition
that death is an unavoidable part of life –
Jesus has been here, too.
Jesus has been here ahead of us.
And Jesus walks with us when the
dark, shadowy fears show up and torment us.
Even this, Jesus knows.

So today, and tomorrow, and the next day…
I want to shelter this bit of life amid the ashes;
I want to water it with my tears,
and nourish it with my songs of thanksgiving.
And then I want to position it
just there,
where the sunlight,
streaming forth from the empty tomb,
can help it to grow strong and true,
always and forever stretching toward the Light.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”

1 Peter 1:3-4

Joining with Michelle at Graceful and Jennifer and the Soli Deo Gloria Sisterhood at Finding Heaven and the generous Kimberly at Journey to Epiphany, who is temping for Emily Weirenga for a while. I’ll also join it to the Lauras, even though it’s not a particularly playful post nor is it so much about a place physical as a place emotional and spiritual. And with Ann V, too. (Although I can never get her button to work here.)

 

Filed Under: death, Holy Week, hope, Lent, Wonderings in the World

A Lenten Journey: Climbing to the Cross – Day THIRTY-SIX

April 3, 2012 By Diana

Cathedral in Haarlem, The Netherlands

Perhaps reminiscent of the Temple? Perhaps not…

Mark 11:27-33, The Message

Then when they were back in Jerusalem once again, as they were walking through the Temple, the high priests, religion scholars, and leaders came up and demanded, “Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to speak and act like this?”

Jesus responded, “First let me ask you a question. Answer my question and then I’ll present my credentials. About the baptism of John—who authorized it: heaven or humans? Tell me.”

They were on the spot, and knew it. They pulled back into a huddle and whispered, “If we say ‘heaven,’ he’ll ask us why we didn’t believe John; if we say ‘humans,’ we’ll be up against it with the people because they all hold John up as a prophet.” They decided to concede that round to Jesus. “We don’t know,” they said.

Jesus replied, “Then I won’t answer your question either.”

_______

Day Three of Holy Week – and score one for Jesus.

Perhaps the last ‘score’ of this kind that Jesus will make until Easter Sunday morning.

It’s a very good thing that Jesus is not really playing the same game as the religious leaders during this momentous week.

Not at all.

He is not into word games.

He is not into power struggles.

He is not into self-defense,
self-aggrandizement,
self-promotion.

He is also not into answering questions that border on insult,
     that seek to quibble and quaver over fine points,
          that imply he is out of turn,
                                       out of place,
                                       out of his element.

Because he most definitely is not.

Jesus is very intentionally –

and most especially in John’s gospel –

very confidently

striding to his final triumph,

his complete and utter victory over all those forces which seek to

delay,

derail,

detract, or

deny who he is and why he has come.

He will not be swayed.
     He will not be used.
          He will not be distracted.
               He will not be anyone but who he is.

Thanks be to God.

_______

Striding Savior, help us to keep step with you, to keep up with you, to keep company with you…right to the end of this journey of yours, this journey of ours. Thank you for your devastatingly adroit response to those who sought to trap you in your own words. And help us – oh, help us! – to never make that mistake. Help us to remain open to the whole truth of who you are and to bow in adoration and gratitude for your humble magnificence. Even though those two words seems oddly juxtaposed – they are so, SO true. Thank you that they are true – that YOU are true.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Lenten Journey, Wonderings in the Word

A Lenten Journey: Climbing to Calvary – Day THIRTY-FIVE

April 2, 2012 By Diana

2 Corinthians 1:1-7, New Living Translation

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy people throughout Achaia:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

_______

Nine times.

Nine times Paul uses some form of the word ‘comfort,’ both noun and verb.

That’s a lotta times in seven short verses, don’t you think? Maybe, just maybe, this is an important idea.

Maybe, just maybe, Paul knows that the church in Corinth – and the church anywhere, anytime – needs to see that word printed out a whole lotta times.

And seeing it here reminds me of that verse in the Shepherd’s Psalm – “thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me…”

The same word – but used in a way that makes me stop for a minute. Stop and wonder if maybe some of the ideas in that psalm might be applied to Paul’s writing – and to our own lives.

Most of us probably have a picture that springs to mind when we think of the word ‘comfort’:

     a favorite spot/blanket/person;
     a particular kind of food;
     an activity that makes us feel better, inside and out;
     a word or phrase that stills and centers us;
     a hug – a pat on the back – a sympathetic face.

But I’m guessing our go-to picture probably does not include a ‘rod’ or a ‘staff.’

So that got me thinking. Maybe I’m stuck in my oh-so-comfortable rut when it comes to understanding just what this whole idea means. Maybe there are ways to be comforted that I’ve never dreamed of or experienced. Or maybe I have experienced them – but in a way I did not immediately recognize as comfort.

Maybe Paul is talking about things like:

     a friend/spouse/mentor who can say to us, ‘enough’ – encouraging us to set a boundary/say ‘no’/stop for a while;
   a verse/book/poem/video/movie/song/blog post that catches our eye, our ear and then our heart, reminding us there is ‘more to life than increasing its speed;’
     a skilled listener, who can – just by sitting quietly and asking a careful question or two – help us to realize where we have taken a misstep and offer us the gentlest of course corrections.

Because sometimes I think we get so caught up in our own spinning wheels that we lose touch with the truth that we NEED comfort, we need someone to truly see us, to help us step out of the dis-comfort we’re drowning in without realizing it.

Sometimes we need the breath of the Spirit – often delivered to us through the presence of another human person – to blow fiercely enough to stop us in our tracks, to remind us that we’re creating a regular lifestyle addiction to overdoing everything.

Because sometimes the ‘trouble’ we find ourselves in is the result of…
     our own driven-ness,
     our inability to know our yeses well enough to say ‘no’ when we need to,
     our eternal need to be needed.

Maybe that’s when we need the comfort of a rod and staff. Maybe that’s when we need a different way of experiencing the ‘comfort that abounds in Christ.’

_______

God of All Comfort, help us to keep our eyes open, our hearts pliable, our spirits willing to be comforted in exactly the way you desire us to be. And empower us, by the gracious breath of your Spirit, to be open to providing comfort – in all its permutations and colors – to others in need. For Jesus’ sake.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Lenten Journey, Wonderings in the Word

A Lenten Journey: Climbing to Calvary – PALM / SIXTH Sunday

April 1, 2012 By Diana

John 12:12-16, New Living Translation

The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted,

“Praise God!
Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hail to the King of Israel!”

Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said:

“Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem.
Look, your King is coming,
riding on a donkey’s colt.”

His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him.

_______

This opening to Holy Week has always made me feel a little bit queasy inside.

Such a welcome – a royal welcome. Well-deserved, but SO not understood by those who are offering it.

They really want to see a King – a king like they were used to, a king like they prayed for, a king who would swoop in and rout out those Romans and restore the honor of Israel. And for a few brief moments, they thought they had found just the guy for the job.

But we already know, from readings earlier on our journey, that Jesus has no intention of fulfilling any of those dreams.

None.

We know, from our vantage point on this side of Calvary and the empty tomb, that Jesus is indeed a king – and that he came to bring in the kingdom of God.

But…

But…it surely doesn’t look like any kingdom anyone has ever seen before. No, it does not.

Just a few days away from the waving palm branches and the shouts of “Hosanna!” this same crowd of people will be shouting again. But it will sound dramatically different, it will be dramatically different. By Friday, the cheers will be jeers and Jesus’ very life will be demanded to satisfy their anger.

Because everything in us resists the truth about Jesus.

We all want a Super-Hero, complete with white charger, swooping in to save the day, to make life easier for us, to solve our problems and make us look good.

What we get is an up-country carpenter on a donkey, slowly walking across the city gate near Bethany, an itinerant rabbi determined to show us what the Kingdom of God really looks like.

Really looks like.

And it does not look like political victories.
It has not one thing to do with power.
It’s not about taking anything by force.

Instead, it’s about dying.
     It’s about the first becoming last.
          It’s about the littlest, the least, the lost and the lonely.
          It’s about reconciliation between God and humans.
     It’s about wholeness,
          and healing,
               and learning to do the hard, hard work of love.

It’s about life with meaning, life with joy – despite the hardships that come our way –
and it’s about life with hope.

I want to get this right. I want to get this. I want to be this.

Do you?

_______

We’re almost here, Lord. We’re almost at the end of this particular Lenten road. Some days we’ve struggled to keep in step; some days we’ve wondered if this was such a good idea. And as we move through this week, I’m sure we’re going to wonder about that a lot. A lot. So as we stand on the sidelines, gently waving our own palm branches, grant us grace to see you, to walk with you, every step of this last week. Every.Single.Step. No matter what.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Lenten Journey, Wonderings in the Word

Stepping Quietly into Holy Week

April 1, 2012 By Diana

“Listen, Heavens,
I have something to tell you.
Attention, Earth,
I’ve got a mouth full of words.

My teaching, let it fall like a gentle rain,
      my words arrive like morning dew,
   Like a sprinkling rain on new grass,
      like spring showers on the garden.
   For it’s God‘s Name I’m preaching—
      respond to the greatness of our God!
   The Rock: His works are perfect,
      and the way he works is fair and just;
   A God you can depend upon, no exceptions,
      a straight-arrow God.
   His messed-up, mixed-up children,
his non-children,
      throw mud at him but none of it sticks.”

Deuteronomy 32:1-5, The Message

As we step into April, as we step into Holy Week,

may we respond to the greatness of our God

like the earth responds to a gentle rain.

Like spring showers on the garden,

may we receive the Word of hope and life.

Joining with dear friends, Sandy and Deidra at their kind invitation
to center and quiet ourselves for worship and reflection each weekend.

Filed Under: biblical reflection, photography, Sunday Reflections