The Journey of Holy Week: Good Friday

Today, we remember the journey to the cross. We remember that Jesus was tortured and beaten and rejected. We know that the stone was rolled in front of the tomb and we are left to wait.

During our Good Friday service tonight, the room was filled with candlelight. As the story of the last day was read, little by little, the room grew darker. Only one candle remained, a single candle next to the cross. As the final words were read, Jesus was placed in the tomb and the room went black.

In that moment, a very real darkness was present. A familiar one that I know from days gone by. It was the darkness of depression and hopelessness and grief. It was a feeling that flooded my heart when the stone rolled in front of the tomb with a pounding sound. I helped plan the service. I had read the text countless times. This is not my first Good Friday. I knew what was coming. Yet in that moment, when the finality of it hit, it was a fresh raw wound.

I know that Good Friday is hard. I know that the service is dark. I also know that it is so very necessary to walk through the pain and feel the hopelessness so that the announcement that 'He Is Risen' means so much more.

I read a blog post today by one of my faves. She is a woman that I admire and look up to. She wrote about why this Good Friday feels different. For her, this year was filled with challenges from Jesus people that she had not known before. I get that.

The number of times that I have come to a personal point of spiritual 'next' and realized that I was standing outside the norm or comfortable or safe is too many to count. In the biggest and scariest of these seasons, I have reached for others and there have been moments of feeling like I was standing on a deserted island. Other times, I have found that what I have to say is so unpopular or unwanted that I may as well quit talking.

We have been conditioned to think that when you jump in the Jesus boat, you will always have people. Sometimes, that's just not true. Sometimes your voice is prophetic and painful. Sometimes your honesty is more than people are comfortable with. Sometimes you choose to step out in a new way and those that have been walking beside you stop mid-step and watch you walk away. This hurts.

It is even more painful to hear the commentary and judgement that is lined with calls for prayer, which is really just Christian-speak for gossip. When faced with these moments of bench clearing moves, we stand alone. For me, I sit and cry and shutoff and resent alone. Not one time have I frivolously stepped out in a major faith decision. When I have chosen to leave or stay or draw a line in the sand, I have done it out of a place of hard fought prayerful listening.

Have I always done it well? No.
Have I always looked to Jesus? You bet your booty.

If you find yourself in a place that the space where you heart occupies is dark and still and depressing, Jesus knows about that, and so do I. I have stood on the darkest hills in painful struggle all while others were doubting my motives. I have wept from feelings of abandonment, from painful decisions and from loneliness. All in the name of trying to serve God.

What I want to do in this next sentence is to tell you Sunday is coming. But I can't. It's not time for that. There will be a resurrection, but it's only Friday and for now, our job is to recognize that we have to be smack in the middle of that pain. There is not an instant fix. The first disciples did not have a countdown clock for Sunday because they didn't know it was coming. And for some of us, we don't either.

The Journey of Holy Week: Thursday

Tonight was a special night. I have a new liturgical partner in crime at ECL and we are ridiculously excited about creative expressions of ancient truth. Tonight, we celebrated Maundy Thursday on a 40' picnic table that three guys built this week! It was amazing. Communion in the context of a meal, how...biblical. I wanted to share with you a picture of the night and a word from my reflection. I pray that this is a night where you are aware of the love and grace and inclusive nature of the table.

-----

9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.    Romans 12:9-13

This last line is why we chose to eat outside tonight. We cannot practice hospitality by having great meals inside a building that the world never sees. We can have a great band and wonderful coffee, but if we never open the door or invade a parking lot with food or serve the world, we find ourselves huddled in an Upper Room of our own making. And then, the world misses out on this beautiful meal.

Hospitality means getting dirty, and feeding hungry stomachs and being shelter from life’s storms. Hospitality means ushering hope into hopelessness and celebrating fully the joys of life. Hospitality means creating space for students and children to be loved when moms and dads are tired and weary.
When we share life,  we remind each other in acts of service that our mission is to love one another in big, profound, Jesus-sized ways.

The Journey of Holy Week: Wednesday

Days before his betrayal and death, Jesus and his disciples were eating at the home of Simon. A woman, who is identified as Mary, approached Jesus with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume, worth about a year’s wages. Mary broke the jar, pouring the perfume on Jesus. In the ancient Near East, the act of anointing signified selection for some special role or task. Kings were often anointed with oil as part of their coronation ceremony.

In John's account of this story, Mary wipes the feet of Jesus. Anointing the feet models service, discipleship, and love. In a culture in which a woman’s touch was often forbidden, Mary dares to cradle the feet of Jesus in her hands and spread the oil across his ankles and toes with the ends of her hair. Rather than measuring out a small amount of oil, Mary breaks the jar and lets it all pour out. She’s all-in, fully committed, sparing no expense.

I am not sure what the equivalent of this moment would be in modern culture, but it would be appalling. The shock of the onlookers, the feeling of watching a sacred and personal moment, the anger at the waste of resources. I can only imagine that I would have been one in the corner fussing about how Mary was doing it wrong. 

But, I have Mary's in my life. They are generous, bold, gracious, servant women that in spite of the norms or the comfortable, they choose to jump in the middle of a touching moment to honor and revere those they love. Women like Mary, that surpass the appropriate and pour out their love and generosity in self-sacrificing ways. I've seen them in the hospital room and the nursery. I've witnessed them in moments of pain and celebrations. I've seen them hold a weeping child and nurse a sick loved one. I've seen the way that they hold a hand through the diagnosis and refuse to walk away. 

In each of these moments, I have watched as the rest of the world stood by with their list of norms and to-do's and could not understand what was drawing them to a kind of servanthood that is foreign to most of us. The kind of love that causes you to give up something precious all in the name of expressing the gift of relationship. 

The coming days are hard. 

We will eat. 

We will pray. 

We will sleep. 

We will deny. 

We will forsake. 

We will weep.

It will be a long 3 days. So, for tonight, spend a moment with the Savior. Pour out your love for Jesus in a new way. Walk deeper into the truth that he is worth giving your best for. And sit at his feet for a moment, oily hair and all. 

The Journey of Holy Week: Tuesday

I don't really like the last few days in the life of Jesus. Up until that point I think much of what he did was endearing. Sure, he spoke a truthful word, but he loved kids, honored women and healed...a lot. When we read about the last few days of his life, the tone seems a bit more hurried. It's almost as if he is trying to pack in all of the important things that he wants to say. The words are pointed. He fusses at religious leaders, he curses a fig tree, he tells stories that point clearly to a lack of faith. More than ever, I hear this need to communicate with those that may still be listening.

I have found this to be true of those that I have watched grow older, as well. It's as if with the compounding gray and the declining health, the gift of time seems fleeting. When the awareness of fewer days becomes a reality, the need to share truth is more pressing. I certainly don't think of myself on the downhill side of life, but as I've made my way up the mountain, I feel a since of freedom to share truth from my experience. At the same time, I see many opportunities to share my passions in the years to come, and Jesus knew that was not going to be his story.

It is not lost on me that one of the groups that Jesus had the harshest words for - all the way to the end - was the religious leaders. I am more and more and more and more convicted every day that as we step out in the ministry of Jesus, we are going to be held accountable for the ways that we lead people. I never want a human to cross my path and think that they are unlovable. Feelings of unworthiness and exclusion are incompatible with Jesus. As a leader in the church, I will fall on the side of love and grace. Every. Single. Time. Now, sometimes love FEELS harsh. I'm a mom to two teenagers, so I understand this on many levels. Jesus didn't promise us an easy life,  free from pain. But, he did promise us a comforter in the pain.

So wherever you find yourself on this Tuesday night, draw deeper into the truth of his final days. He wanted us to hear the depth of his love in the truth of his words. He gave us example after example of how to love. Now, it's our job to do it.

The Journey of Holy Week: Monday

If you read the account of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, you notice that immediately following the story of Palm Sunday comes the story of Jesus clearing the temple. If you have not read this recently, I encourage you to look in either Matthew 21, Mark 11 or Luke 19. For those who would like to pick apart the scholastic holes or intensely study the differences in these accounts, we can do that another day. For today, I have two questions.

Jesus is headed for a brutal end. He knows this is coming. He sees the writing on the wall of the call on his life. This leads me to believe that if he is spending his last days once again sharing with the world that it time to get our act together, this is important business. So question #1 - What do you need to clean up in your life to be ready to receive the gift of Resurrection? Are you hosting a swap meet of values? Are you trying to make space for the unimportant rather than holding the court of honor for the sacred and holy?

For me, this week is about returning to a space of sacred YES. I spent tonight doing yoga with my oldest. I will spend much time this week in my faith community. We will intentionally slow down. If we rush right through this week with packed calendars and full days and hurried emotions, we will find ourselves there on Sunday morning as well.

The same is true about our churches. For those on church staffs, we WORK this week. We want it all to be perfect and polished and excellent. We know that for some folks, this will be the last time we see them until December 24th. Here's the truth, if we are not journeying with Jesus through this week, everything we try to polish up for Sunday will be empty. May we take tomorrow and Wednesday to walk though our worship spaces and pray that people will encounter the depth of the gift of new life. May we weep with those who are experiencing death and yet claim with them, even when they can't that resurrection is the promise.

I feel certain that if Jesus was to walk through our lives and our churches and see us spiffing up the carpets and scrubbing the bathrooms and planting new plants on the front walk, he would check our hearts. And if he found that our polish and pretty was about the exterior only, he would flip the tables of our churches and our hearts just like he did in scripture.

May the Savior find our hearts ready for the journey of this week. All of it.

The Journey of Holy Week: Palm Sunday

This is the week. This is the week that changed everything for those who follow Jesus. For those of us that love the rhythm of the Church Calendar, we get dorky excited when Holy Week begins. It's the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Our journey is wrapped up in everything from celebration to sorrow and back again. I need just a moment to express some personal thoughts on this week. Well, perhaps they are more than thoughts, they are suggestions. Please hear them with the appropriate amount of love and grace and firmness.

PLEASE do not skip from Sunday to Sunday. The story of Jesus is not complete with palms and lilies. We need the bread and the cup. We need the nails and the grief. We need the stone closing the tomb. When we wave palm branches on Palm Sunday and skip past the week to a sunrise egg hunt and matching family pastels, we miss the WHY.

I missed worship today. I was on a plane home from Tampa with tired swimmers and even more exhausted parents, coaches and Mimi's. As we flew, I was reminded that around the world, people were gathering together and shouting Hosannah and celebrating that the King is riding the donkey into Jerusalem in Glory.  Then the news informed me that Christians in Egypt were doing just this when terror invaded their worship. This news made my desire to celebrate our hope even more important this week. Honestly, I was terribly sad that I was not with my community this morning, and I took a few moments of stillness to usher myself into this week. This is important. We have much to celebrate and grieve about and hope for in the days to come. Be present and connect in ways that are meaningful for you.

Over the next few days, I am going to write about stories that are found in the Gospels between the entry of Jesus to Jerusalem and the Last Supper. On Thursday, we will remember this holy meal. Friday is the day that hope seems lost as we witness the pain of death. And then we wait.

You can do this in many ways, but I find it especially valuable to do this in the context of community. For my local friends, I would be honored to have you as a part of our community at ECL. Wednesday, we will close out our Lenten study with a conversation entitled "There is a place at the table for all." The study starts at 7pm. On Thursday, we will share the Eucharist in the context of a meal. Join us at 6:30pm under the oak trees at 218 Clear Creek Ave. Friday, we will journey with the Gospel writers and be reminded of the pain of death. This service will draw on the hopelessness on the day of Crucifixion. And finally, next Sunday at 10am we will celebrate all that is Resurrection. All of it!

This week is intentionally painful. The road is not easy. My prayer for you is that you can find a space and time and way to be on a journey this week. And if the journey of Jesus seems like a far away story from a far away time, I pray that it will come alive for you this week. May we see the road leading into Jerusalem as our invitation to hope.

Be the Change

I am a medical nut. I read way too much. I like to think that I am an amateur doctor. Years ago, I read a story about a star player of a high school basketball team who developed an unusual medical condition: blebs. Apparently, the boy had experienced a growth spurt in which his body grew faster than his lungs, causing blebs – a sort of blister that forms on the lungs – to develop. One of these blebs ruptured, causing his lung to actually collapse, sending him to bed for weeks.

He was experiencing a severe case of something that many of us go through in a less concrete way as we try to make changes in our lives - growing pains. No matter how desperately we desire to proactively make changes, like losing weight or changing careers, or how much we crave to be more adaptable to our rapidly changing world or recover from our failures with more resilience, the fact is that sometimes – most times – change hurts. And often, change hurts enough that the most human, instinctive reaction is to stop what seems like the cause of the pain: our efforts at transformation.

Growing pains.
Maybe you’ve these pains in comments like this:
“We’ve tried that before – it’s never worked, and it won’t work now.”
“We’ve never done that before and I don’t know why we’re doing it now.”
“______ thinks they know everything. But he/she’s clueless about how we do things here. They know nothing about our culture.”



Growing pains.

We need a new pair of glasses when we come to the moments that we realize that we are in the midst of growing pains. God’s call for us is not going to change. God’s plan for wholeness and restoration is without end. What has to change is our heart. And in order to do that, we need to quit looking through the glasses of failures and judgement and victimhood. We must begin to see that our heart, our thoughts and our outlook on change are what is keeping us locked in growing pains.


Until we are able to take off the glasses of resentment and judgement and risk self-exposure and an honest examination of the motives of our heart, we will spend our lives afraid of growing pains and trapped in our head. So tonight, I wonder. Where do I need take off the glasses of victimhood, fear and negativity and see change as an opportunity to walk through growing pains to transformation?

Each time you put a pair of glasses one this week, take time think and be still. To look through new lenses at the changes that are happening around you. Put sunglasses in your car. Remember these decisions when your reasign glasses do on. in your car, write on them, put them in the place that you know you will see them when your thoughts start to take you down the road to fear and running from God.

And share it with someone. Talk to a friend, a counselor, me. Let them know how to pray for your heart, because the call of God on your life is not changing, so now its time to align your heart.