Monday of Holy Week
April 14th reflection by Sarah Strickland
You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me. – John 12:8
WHAT IF WE WERE ALL FULLY PRESENT?
Growing up, as a devout Roman Catholic Portuguese family, lent was an important time to “carry your cross” and give up something that you felt you really had been giving excess of your time, your thoughts or your wants to-an idol without that description.
As we grew older we struggled to find the right thing to give up and would usually go straight back to the traditional “I will eliminate caffeine from my diet” for 40 days knowing that every headache that resulted was truly an opportunity to “carry that cross”. When Easter would arrive we would celebrate and consume all of the chocolate and Starbucks drinks we could find and return to our normal life checking off the “giving up something significant” and being ready to defend our serious struggle and how it helped us become closer to Christ.
Seven years ago, as Lent approached, I realized that removing caffeine from my daily routine was not going to happen. Jimmy was working from sunrise to bedtime as an athletic trainer at a prestigious high school and I was working at a youth soccer club while trying to maintain some sanity with our 3 kids under the age of 5. As my dear friend from Disciple class, Jenny Schrum, says, “You Win!”
I could not keep up the pace and was not willing to try just to gain favor with my aunts this time.
I prayed about what to do and decided to take a new route. Rather than giving something up, I added something to my daily routine. This change helped me grow significantly in my relationship with Christ and allowed introspection rather than limitation in my life.
The change was a weekly bible study with a dear friend and mentor, Becky Sillers. The book we used was titled Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World. It got right to the heart of eliminating distraction and being fully present when God is near. Even to this day I fight my Martha tendency to stay busy, check the twitter feed, like every positive status I see on Facebook and reply as efficiently as possible to every text and email I receive. But in doing so, have I truly been present to any of these people or potential opportunities to be a witness?
If Christ walked into my home today he would not be tallying how many things I did but looking at what was in my heart and whether or not I was willing to stop, sit at His feet, and listen – be truly and fully present.
I pray that throughout this Lenten season you can join me or help me to become fully present in my prayer time, quiet time and my relationships. No matter how many days are ahead I will have a laundry list to check off of things to do, but without being fully present for Christ I will miss the joy, the peace and the love that He offers.
May you have a blessed Lenten season filled with spiritual growth, deepened relationships and opportunities to be fully present to hear the message He brings.
Amen.
Tuesday of Holy Week
April 15th reflection by Luke Christy
When I was a kid I had a lot of arguments with my parents over rules. As a twelve year old boy rules just seemed to be a way for my parents to keep me from having fun. Most of my rule breaking occurred when I was playing with my next-door neighbor, Wells. One particular benefit of being best friends with Wells was that he owned his very own bb gun. To the twelve year old me there was nothing more fun than shooting that bb gun. However, his parents and my parents had come together to make a rule that Wells and I could only shoot the bb gun when an adult was present. Of course it did not take long for Wells and I to break this rule and shoot the gun without supervision. The freedom of shooting the gun without a parent looking over our shoulder was just as good as Ralphie from the movie “A Christmas Story” had made it sound. In this state of euphoria though I somehow managed to pull the trigger and accidently shoot my best friend in the whole world right in his leg. After a few tears and some blood a doctor determined my friend would be fine, but in that moment I was reminded why we have rules.
In Matthew 5:17 Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” This is one of those really confusing things Jesus says, because his ministry seems to be all about breaking rules and questioning the law. The cool thing about Jesus though is that he was never too worried about how to follow rules and laws; he was more concerned with WHY we should follow the rules and laws, and the intentions behind them. The question: WHY is a much more exciting question that can lead to many possibilities, and the season of Lent gives us time to reflect upon this question. Our God has given us freedom, freedom to choose, freedom to experience, freedom to enjoy, and freedom to learn. This is a season to go deeper in our faith and reevaluate WHY we do what we do. Shooting my best friend with a bb gun taught me why I should follow rules. That experience taught me that my parents did not want to prevent me from shooting the gun, but that they wanted to look out for my safety. There was a deeper meaning behind the rule than I was able to realize. Today let’s ask ourselves the question: why? Why do we make the decisions that we do? Why do we react the way we do? Why do we choose to live the way we do? Why are we seeking a relationship with Jesus? Lets reflect on the intentions behind our rules and actions, and remember that we are on a journey that leads to finding the tomb empty and Jesus resurrected!
Prayer: God, thank you for the wonderful opportunity to be in relationship with you. Help us find the WHY behind our rules, laws, and intentions. Help our thoughts, words, actions, and intentions glorify you. Remind us to be mindful of WHY we do the things we do so that our intentions and love for you and one another may be pure. We love you, Lord.
Wednesday of Holy Week
April 16th reflection by Doris Hedrick
You Do It to Me
Matthew 25:34-36
As a Christian I thought that I was doing everything right: helping others when I saw a need, contributing to the local food pantry, giving clothing to Goodwill, working as a nurse, caring for the sick, giving money to the church to help pay for mission work. I had even been a part of mission teams traveling to other places. The one thing that I feared was visiting prisoners.
There was a juvenile correction facility in our community and it was suggested that our church go there and do Bible study with the young people. I was adamantly opposed. But a friend persuaded me to help with a weekend event there. When I met the “prisoners,” I realized that they were simply children who had made mistakes and were paying the price for what they had done. Later, when an opportunity was presented to me to work at this facility, I gladly accepted the job.
I learned that God’s grace is sufficient for all, no matter what mistakes we have made. God, through God’s infinite wisdom, placed me exactly where I was supposed to be, and, as a result, I was able to share my faith in many ways every day with the youth I encountered. Through grace, my fear vanished and I, too, received forgiveness for not trusting in the words of scripture.
Prayer: Father, I thank you for the gift of forgiveness. Let me always remember that your grace is bigger than any sin and that you long for me to repent and seek you. Amen.
~Doris Hedrick
Natural Bridge Station, VA
This devotion comes from the Society of St. Andrew’s 2014 Lenten booklet, “Create in Me a Clean Heart,” and is reproduced here with Society of St. Andrew’s permission. The Society of St. Andrew is a nationwide hunger relief ministry, engaging volunteers in the biblical practice of gleaning to provide healthy food for neighbors in need. Learn more at www.endhunger.org.
Maundy Thursday
April 17th reflection by Diana Haas
Give, and it shall be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put in your lap. Luke 6:38
“One of You will betray me”..Jesus spoke these words to His closest friends, His chosen 12 disciples. What would each of them do or say?
How would you respond?
“The Last Supper” Service is a dramatization of this moment. My husband Paul and I work together each year to bring this to life at Boone UMC.
Each year my first prayer is to ask God if He wants us to do this service, and then ask Him to bring the individuals He wants to portray the disciples and Jesus.
I think of this throughout the year and talk to people, but inevitably at least one must be replaced, sometimes at the very last moment!
Over the years more than 50 men have participated in this service. It has become a tradition at our church.
In these 22 years I have learned that God will provide the right ones for each time. It is this blessed assurance that keeps me calm when I am most concerned about this service, or for that matter, anything else in life.
God speaks through all of us to reach those in need. He also teaches each of us to rely on Him and He will provide.
Good Friday
April 18th anonymous reflection
Jesus, Remember Me As You Come Into Your Kingdom
There is a beautiful Taize chant using these words. It is wonderful as a background for meditation. The celebration of the coming of Jesus’ Kingdom is the culmination of Lent and Passion Week when His resurrection signals the defeat of death. We can only imagine the glory of Jesus’ kingdom and of His saying to us, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father…” (Matt 25:34). What an overwhelming victory for One who was described as “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows…[who] “took up our infirmities…was pierced for our transgressions and on whom “the Lord has laid … the iniquity of us all.” (Is 53:3).
However, we might choose to meditate on the source of the words in the chant (Luke 23:42). The man who said them was not a faithful follower of Jesus; he was not even a respectable person. He was a criminal. Surely he was not among those who could be told “Well done, good and faithful servant…” (Matt 25:21).
This man was being crucified, and so was Jesus. And Jesus had spent the night before being abused and beaten. How much more piteous Jesus must have looked than even these men beside him. And yet, amidst his own agony and pain, in an amazing moment of insight and clarity this offender recognized Jesus as the Son of God and asked that he would not be passed by in the final triumph. And Jesus’ response? “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43).
What a marvelous reminder of the wideness of God’s mercy. No matter what my situation, no matter the depth of my sin, even in suffering and distress I know that Jesus has paid the price for my redemption (Rom 3:24) just as He did for this thief on the cross next to Him. And what does he ask of me? Money? Riches? Repayment? No! He asks that I follow him and both live and spread the Good News. …For He is Worthy to Receive Glory and Honor and Power…. (Rev 4:11). Amen
Holy Saturday
April 19th reflection by Creighton University’s Online Ministries
Today we contemplate Jesus, there in the tomb, dead. In that tomb, he is dead, exactly the way each of us will be dead. We don’t easily contemplate dying, but we rarely contemplate being dead. I have had the blessed experience of being with a number of people who have died, of arriving at a hospital shortly after someone has died, of attending an autopsy, and of praying with health sciences students over donated bodies in gross anatomy class. These are blessed experiences because they all brought me face-to-face with the mystery of death itself. With death, life ends. Breathing stops, and in an instant, the life of this person has ended. And, in a matter of hours, the body becomes quite cold and life-less – dramatic evidence that this person no longer exists. All that is left is this decaying shell that once held his or her life.
Death is our ultimate fear. Everything else we fear, every struggle we have, is some taste of, some chilling approach to, the experience of losing our life. This fear is responsible for so much of our lust and greed, so much of our denial and arrogance, so much of our silly clinging to power, so much of our hectic and anxiety-driven activity. It is the one, inevitable reality we all will face. There is not enough time, money, joy, fulfillment, success. Our physical beauty and strength, our mental competency and agility, all that we have and use to define ourselves, slip away from us with time. Our lives are limited. Our existence is coming to an end. We will all die. In a matter of time, all that will be left of any of us is a decomposing body.
Today is a day to soberly put aside the blinders we have about the mystery of death and our fear of it. Death is very real and its approach holds great power in our lives. The “good news” we are about to celebrate has no real power in our lives unless we have faced the reality of death. To contemplate Jesus’ body, there in that tomb, is to look our death in the face.
Today’s reflection will lead us to the vigil of Easter. This night, communities from all over the world will gather in darkness, a darkness that represents all that we have been reflecting upon today. And there, in that darkness, a fire is lit. That flame is shared around the community until its light fills the room. Then, a song of exultation is sung, proclaiming that Christ is the light of this night. And, there, in the light of Christ, we will read the scriptures that prepare us to celebrate God’s revelation. This is the story of our salvation – how God prepared to rescue us from the power of sin and death. The God who created us, who led a chosen people out of slavery, raised Jesus from death. We can rejoice that death has no final victory over us. We can celebrate our faith that we have been baptized into the death of Jesus, so that we might be baptized into his life.
As we behold the body of Jesus in the tomb today, and as we contemplate the mystery of our death, we prepare our hearts to receive the Good News of life. We know that tomb will be empty and remain empty forever as a sign that our lives will not really end, but only be transformed. One day, we will all rest in the embrace of Jesus, who knows our death, and who prepares a place for us in everlasting life. Our reflection on this holy Saturday, and our anticipation of celebrating the gift of life tonight and tomorrow, can bring immense peace and joy, powerful freedom and vitality to our lives. For if we truly believe that death holds no true power over us, we can walk each day in the grace being offered us – to give our lives away in love.
Taken from the “Weekly Guide for Daily Prayer” on the Creighton University’sOnline Ministriesweb site: http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/online.html Used with permission.
Easter Sunday
April 20th reflection by Jason Byassee
There is no analogy for the resurrection of Jesus. We have tried to find one: it is like a flowering tree–bare in the winter, reborn in the spring. Or it is like a caterpillar that goes into a cocoon one thing and comes out another.
Or it is like being born all over again. Or it is like being revived after one has died. It is like sleep, after which we wake up refreshed.
In every case, it is child’s play simply to parrot, “not it isn’t.” Because “it” never is. In the case of the analogies from nature, the resurrection is no natural thing. Bodies don’t lie in tombs and come back as something else or better. They lie in tombs and return to the dust. In the case of the analogies from birth and health care and sleep and death, none quite gets there. The bible uses each analogy to describe our conversion to new life in Christ (Jn .3:5 & 16, Eph. 5:14, 1 Cor. 15:6).
No, the most natural thing there is, is people are born, live, and then die.
Yet, on Easter morning, we confess that what can’t happen, did happen. Jesus rose again in his body and appeared to his friends. One person passed through the gears of death and then passed back through the “wrong” way, stripping those gears and depriving their power over the rest of us.
And that’s what’s truly miraculous about Easter. Not just that one man rose. If that’s all it is, good for him, but not much good for us.
But here is where biblical faith gets truly interesting. The claim is not just that one man rose, but that he’s the beginning of a general resurrection. Jews believed that at the end of the world, all people would rise, receive their bodies back, and stand before God in judgment. That’s what the word “resurrection” meant: a time when God would set the world right, giving justice to the oppressed, casting down the proud, and making the world right.
What’s weird–and this is one of the only things we Christians changed from our Jewish forebears–is that the general resurrection has begun. With only one Jew. That one has passed through death via resurrection. He has been judged righteous. The resurrection and judgment of all flesh has begun. It’s just taking a little while to get from resurrection #1 to resurrection #2, or #7,000,000,000.
Are you getting the point? Our resurrection will one day be as physical as Jesus’. It will be bodily. Jesus eats fish (Lk. 24:42-43), his friends touch him (Lk. 24:39). But our bodies will not be limited the way they are in this world. Jesus walks through walls (Jn. 20:26), he vanishes and reappears (Lk. 24:31). He has his scars, to be sure (Jn. 20:27). But his wounds are healed, made holy (pardon the pun), transcendent with God’s forgiving mercy.
And here there are analogies in the New Testament. Jesus is the “first fruits” of those who have died (1 Cor. 15:20 & 23). His resurrection is like the first taste of a new crop–sweet, juicy, more tender than you remembered. You haven’t tasted it in months, you worked hard for it, and here it is. Or the Holy Spirit is the “down payment” of all of our resurrection (2 Cor. 1:22 & 2 Cor. 5:5). A down payment is a commitment, born of sweat and toil, that the buyer will make good on the borrowed money. The resurrection is God’s down payment that he will raise us all.
