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No Easter without Good Friday—for Jesus, for us.

4/3/2015

Good Friday! Easter! My faith has grown exponentially in the past year and with that, no surprise, I notice myself deeply immersed in Holy Week. The experience is more prayerful than analytic. I find myself walking around with Jesus, not saying much, nor does he. We’re just together in all the sorrow, both his and mine, personal and worldly. We’re walking along, walking through it all, walking with God, walking toward God. In Scripture Jesus leads us to God. Jesus goes to God through prayer, but ultimately via the Cross.

We know God through our difficulties. When we face the truth on our cross, we meet God. It can happen to us again and again; many truth tellings, many crosses. There can be no Resurrection without a Crucifixion, no Easter without Good Friday—for Jesus, for us.

God will put us back together again~

4/15/2014

I been thinking about the people who have experienced heartfelt tragedy and sadness during this past year. Are they glad that Lent is coming to an end? Is this Holy Week and the anticipation of Good Friday too much for them to bear? Are they afraid that they will feel no Easter joy, that they won’t be able to sing Hallelujah?

These are the people that I will put on my prayer list. Their hearts feel broken and they may fear that, like Humpty Dumpty, they are powerless. I can’t fix them, but I can send the salve of God’s peace, which sooths. God will put them back together again. Don’t ask me how this works. I just know that, with faith, it does.

Stations of the Cross~

4/13/2014

I’ve agreed to set up one of the Stations of the Cross for the Good Friday service at my church. Focusing on Stations of the Cross is not particularly common to Protestant churches, and certainly to the UCC, but the incidents they represent aren’t. After all, they are in Scripture.

    I have chosen station # 1 (according to the form my church is using): “Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.” Matthew 26: 36-46; Mark 14: 32-42; Luke 22:40-46. In the story Jesus asks his disciples to sit with him in his time of trial and to pray. But each time they fall asleep, and each time Jesus admonishes them.

     In my station I am going to concentrate on Jesus’ words in Matthew 14:38:

      Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’

     How does this apply to my life? Is there someone I know that I can sit with, someone who is dying, or grieving deeply, or both? How can I stay awake with them? Can I be with them as a listener? Can I keep quiet and listen when they want to talk, and when they are silent?

     I’m going to suggest that each visitor to the station think of a person they know, and in the week after Easter go sit with them and do their best to stay awake and listen.

Seasons of faith~

4/22/2013

I aware that catastrophic news events can detract from my prayer life. On one level I’m praying all the time, but on another I am distracted from my usual prayer and meditation routine. Maybe I need to remember that Christianity is a seasonal faith with the yearly church calendar of Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, and Ordinary Time, Our lives, and surely our prayer lives, reflect this in an arbitrary and seeming random fashion—anticipation, birth, suffering, little deaths, resurrections, and all those time when nothing much seems to be happening.

Last week I discovered how easy it is for me to let go of my usual prayer practice. As I forgive myself (once again), I want to recommit (once again) to the stability that the monastic tradition that passed on through the centuries. We are told to stay in our cell, for it is there that we will come to know all that we need to know. The Rule of St. Benedict tells us, “Listen carefully with the ear of your heart.” That calls for attention to the seasons of my faith.

The story of Easter never ends~

4/2/2013

If Easter is the highlight of our Christian faith, I ought to be right there with the prayer, praying without ceasing. But since I’m not a sequestered religious, that is hardly the case. Family gatherings, meals to be planned, prepared, served and cleared up after seem to take precedence over the church services that I rush off to. Although once I arrive in the pew I remember and am grateful, I must admit that often the celebration aspect of Easter overshadows the worship.

But the story doesn’t end. Thank God for Easter Monday and all the ordinary days that follow, all the days of a lifetime. I have five days at the cottage before I clean up, lock the door and settle back at home-- five days to watch the sunrise and walk the beach, five days to read and pray about what Easter means for me this year.

He is not here….he is risen.

3/31/2013

Happy Easter everyone.

He is not here….he is risen. Alleluia!

Good Friday services~

3/29/2013

So here it, Good Friday again. For some reason I’m remember the routine back when I was a kid, probably junior high age (that’s what it was called back then). Schools weren’t closed but we could take the time to go to the 12 noon to 3 service at church, and I recall going a few times. We sat there, that’s all: no reading, no music, no prayers, just the space to sit and wait with Jesus. Nowadays there is an ecumenical service in town and an evening service at my church. All fine, but I miss that empty service before the day of the empty tomb. Of course I could take that time myself; I don’t need the church structure. But alas, instead, I will be welcoming grandchildren at that time, which isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s just not the same. I know that.

Suffering doesn't have the last word~

3/25/2013

Holy Week has begun. Yesterday at church there were palms and the music was serious. Being a life-long Protestant, well…, nothing too heavy about the Cross for me. We were into the Resurrection, skipping right into Easter. That Protestant upbringing, along with my optimistic disposition, has kept me from going very deeply into the theology and dogma around suffering and the Cross.

With that acknowledgment, where do I stand on the drama and events of this coming week? As I enjoy the evening sunlight on the water here at the cottage, I find it a challenge to even consider suffering, Jesus’ or anyone else’s. But I only have to glance at the names on my ‘top ten prayer list’ to be reminded: people involved in surgery and chemo; friends grieving for loved ones; individuals feeling alone, isolated and unloved; people agonizing over serious life decisions and relationship gone amiss. In suffering the humiliation, betrayal and pain of the Cross, Jesus experienced them all.

But of course his story didn’t end, not with the crucifixion, not even with Easter. With the continual coming of the Holy Spirit it is a story without an ending. Clearly suffering doesn’t have the last word.

Crucifixes at Santa Maria Novella~

6/11/2012

Santa Maria Novella

I didn’t grow up with crucifixes, nor are there any in my present day church, so when I come to Italy I am particularly aware of the many times I see Jesus hanging on the cross. Our Protestant crosses are plain, empty, suggesting a Resurrected Christ, a message of hope. Sometimes it feels like we are just bypassing the suffering.

On this trip, however, I find myself spending time in front of these crucifixes. Of course many are masterpieces, painted or sculpted by renowned artist of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Just today, standing in one spot in the nave of Santa Maria Novella, I was witness to three: one carved out of wood by Brunelleschi, one painted by Giotto, and another painted by Masaccio.

These crucifixes help me remember the suffering in the world (the hunger, genocide, poverty, sexism, racism, illness) and in individuals that I know personally. In order to pray for those suffering, I have to spend time with it, and looking at a crucifix is one way to keep me there before moving on too quickly to the Resurrection. A crucifix reminds me of the Christian message and gives me a way to imagine suffering as a ‘necessary’ way to peace and to God’s kingdom now and forever.

Painted by Giotto (late 13th century)

Painting entitled the "Trinity" by Masaccio (1427)

Easter continues~

4/9/2012

Easter, the most important holiday in the Christian calendar, is over for another year. The day was wonderful for me--sunrise service, church service filled with joyful music, the message of hope, and a sense of community: family walks and dinner. As the expression goes, “It was all good.”

Yes, the celebration is over. But what has amazed me this year is how comforted I feel now that the festivities and rituals are over. In fact, I am closer to God in today’s afterglow than in yesterday’s singing of “Christ the Lord Has Risen Today”. The resurrection has happened; Jesus is here for me on my own road to Emmaus. Something has shifted. I know and have come to believe that I won’t feel as alone when difficulties arise, or when I am angry, envious, jealous. The death I might feel when things don’t go right, has lost its sting. Easter season will continue.