For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6
…there must take place that struggle no human presumes to picture: living, dying, descending to rescue the just from shadow, were lesser travails than this: to break through earth and stone of the faithless world back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained stifling shroud; to break from them back into breath and heartbeat, and walk the world again, closed into days and weeks again, wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit streaming through every cell of flesh so that if mortal sight could bear to perceive it, it would be seen His mortal flesh was lit from within, now, and aching for home. He must return, first, in Divine patience, and know hunger again, and give to humble friends the joy of giving Him food—fish and a honeycomb. ~Denise Levertov from “Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell”
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. ~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Christ forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought and beaten the king of death. Everything is different because he has done so. ~C.S. Lewis from Miracles
In my clinical work over four decades, I met people living with dark times. It is rare for a patient to come to clinic because all is well.
They come because they are beaten down, struggling to keep going, running out of fuel, hungry for calm as they are blown about by the storms of life.
It was my challenge to stoke and feed the inner light hidden deep within each person, fighting back the darkness as I sorted out how to mend their unwellness.
I’m reminded Christ came back from the harrowing darkness of hell to be joyfully met by His disciples, who fed His hunger. Then He cooked breakfast for them, forever offering Himself as sanctuary from the darkness He had known.
So too, we are fed, bathing in His glow.
Lyrics Jesus Christ, inner light, let not our own darkness conquer us. Jesus Christ, inner light, enable us to welcome your love. Jesus Christ, in our search for you, Bring us into the warmth of your light. Jesus Christ, inner light, enable us to welcome your love.
Lyrics: Through love to light! Oh, wonderful the way That leads from darkness to the perfect day! From darkness and from sorrow of the night To morning that comes singing o’er the sea. Through love to light! Through light, O God, to thee, Who art the love of love, the eternal light of light!
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And God held in his hand A small globe. Look, he said. The son looked. Far off, As through water, he saw A scorched land of fierce Colour. The light burned There; crusted buildings Cast their shadows; a bright Serpent, a river Uncoiled itself, radiant With slime. On a bare Hill a bare tree saddened The sky. Many people Held out their thin arms To it, as though waiting For a vanished April To return to its crossed Boughs. The son watched Them. Let me go there, he said. ~R.S. Thomas “The Coming”
…for each of us has known the pleasure of spring, the way it feels for something closed
to open: the soft, heavenly weather of arrival. ~Faith Shearin from “Geese” from Moving the Piano
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for? ~Robert Browning from “Andrea del Sarto”
“Let me go there” And You did. Knowing what awaited You.
Your arms out wide to embrace us who try to grasp a heaven which eludes us.
This heaven, Your heaven You brought down to us, knowing our terrible need.
You wanted to come here, knowing all this.
Holding us firmly within your wounded grip, You the Son handed us back to heaven.
A sorrowful holy season of opening and emptying: from cloistered tight to reaching beyond our grasp. Or what’s a heaven for?
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Holy Saturday is the day between promise and sight. Good Friday has done its work. Easter morning has not yet dawned. The body of Jesus lies in the tomb, and the church waits in silence. It is the day when believers must reckon with the full weight of Christ’s death before they can speak of resurrection. ~Hardin Crowder from “Christ’s Saturday in the Grave”
God goes, belonging to every riven thing he’s made sing his being simply by being the thing it is: stone and tree and sky, man who sees and sings and wonders why
God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he’s made, means a storm of peace. Think of the atoms inside the stone. Think of the man who sits alone trying to will himself into a stillness where
God goes belonging. To every riven thing he’s made there is given one shade shaped exactly to the thing itself: under the tree a darker tree; under the man the only man to see
God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made the things that bring him near, made the mind that makes him go. A part of what man knows, apart from what man knows,
God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made. ~Christian Wiman “Every Riven Thing”
Here at the centre everything is still Before the stir and movement of our grief Which bears it’s pain with rhythm, ritual, Beautiful useless gestures of relief. So they anoint the skin that cannot feel Soothing his ruined flesh with tender care, Kissing the wounds they know they cannot heal, With incense scenting only empty air. He blesses every love that weeps and grieves And makes our grief the pangs of a new birth. The love that’s poured in silence at old graves Renewing flowers, tending the bare earth, Is never lost. In him all love is found And sown with him, a seed in the rich ground. ~Malcolm Guite “Jesus Laid in the Tomb”
The Holy Saturday of our life must be the preparation for Easter, the persistent hope for the final glory of God. The virtue of our daily life is the hope which does what is possible and expects God to do the impossible. To express it somewhat paradoxically, but nevertheless seriously: the worst has actually already happened; we exist, and even death cannot deprive us of this. Now is the Holy Saturday of our ordinary life, but there will also be Easter, our true and eternal life. ~Karl Rahner “Holy Saturday” in The Great Church Year
Fellow sufferers, you know as well as I do that Friday is rarely the worst. It’s Saturday morning, when the body’s lizard-dry from crying and the blood has stiffened to a stop. You ping rocks off the walls of your tomb, thinking, at least Friday’s nails offered some hope of relief—an absence of pain to look forward to. But here we are, beloved, in the dumb quiet of having cried out to God and fermented in forsakenness with nothing to show for it but six dozen pounds of burial spices. There’s still a world knocking around outside that remembers our gashes and screams but has no idea how lonely it is to have come to the other side, linen still stuck to our eyes and so much hell left to harrow. ~Tania Runyon “Holy Saturday”from Poet Jesus
This is the day in between when nothing makes sense: we are lost, hopeless, grieving,riven beyond recognition.
We are brought to our senses by this one Death, this premeditated killing, this senseless act that darkened the skies, shook the earth and tore down the curtained barriers to the Living Eternal God.
The worst has already happened, despite how horrific are the constant tragic events filling our headlines.
Today, this Holy Saturday we are in between, stumbling in the darkness but aware of hints of light, of buds, of life, of promised fruit to come.
The best has already happened; it happened even as we remained oblivious to its impossibility.
We move through this Saturday, doing what is possible even when it feels senseless, even as we feel split apart, torn and sundered.
Tomorrow it will all make sense: our hope brings us face to face with our God who is and was and does the impossible.
So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid. Mark 15:46-47
Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Psalm 27:14
I see his blood upon the rose And in the stars the glory of his eyes, His body gleams amid eternal snows, His tears fall from the skies.
I see his face in every flower; The thunder and the singing of the birds Are but his voice-and carven by his power Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by his feet are worn, His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea, His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn, His cross is every tree. ~Joseph Plunkett “I See His Blood Upon the Rose”
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How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity’s song– all without lifting a finger that we could see. You have allowed bonds of love beyond number to be painfully snapped. If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself.
Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it.
We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God. ~Nicholas Wolterstorffin Lament for a Son
“My God, My God,” goes the Psalm 22,“hear me, why have you forsaken me?”
This is the anguish all we of Godforsaken heart know well. But hear the revelation to which Christ directs us, further in the same psalm:
For He has not despised nor scorned the beggar’s supplication, Nor has He turned away His face from me; And when I cried out to Him, He heard me.“
He hears us, and he knows, because he has suffered as one Godforsaken. Which means that you and I, even in our darkest hours, are not forsaken. Though we may hear nothing, feel nothing, believe nothing, we are not forsaken, and so we need not despair.
And that is everything. That is Good Friday and it is hope, it is life in this darkened age, and it is the life of the world to come. ~Tony Woodlief from “We are Not Forsaken”
The whole of Christ’s life was a continual passion; others die martyrs, but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha, where he was crucified, even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as the cross at last.
His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas Day and his Good Friday are but the evening and the morning of one and the same day. From the creche to the cross is an inseparable line. Christmas only points forward to Good Friday and Easter. It can have no meaning apart from that, where the Son of God displayed his glory by his death. ~John Donne – hisopening words in his sermon on Christmas Day 1626
Anytime we assume God in heaven could not possibly understand the loneliness and rejection we feel the pain and discouragement we endure the hatred that taints our communities the suffering that is part of living inside these frail vessels, our bodies. Surely, we think — if there was a God, He would do something about it:
He reminds us today of all days He was scraped and torn – not scratching the surface, but gouged deep. He knows exactly what we endure because He wasn’t spared.
He took it all on Himself — our affliction became His.
Paid in full.
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Being thorough, I remove a holey sock to view a diabetic man’s filthy feet. I use the time to complete our talk of what drove him to live on the street as I wonder how any of this can help.
While he tells me more of his medical past, I run warm water into a stainless bowl. I immerse both his feet and begin to ask myself what good it does for this poor soul to allow himself to undergo this ablution.
Silently I sluice the water between his toes and soap the crusty callous at his heel. I marvel at his arch and notice how closely it fits my palm. I know he can feel this proximity too. He shuts his eyes.
Months of useless layers peel away, revealing layers useless weeks ago. Removing the tough brown hide of yesterday yields clean pink skin, but we both know this ritual will be useless days from now.
Still, this moment may withstand time’s test, teaching us each lessons unknown before. I learn the medicine of selflessness. He learns what medicine is really for– the hope that basin, soap and touch can bear. ~Robert Fawcett “Washing Feet”
Jesus washing the feet of his disciples by Finnish artist Albert Gustaf Edelfelt
What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long, Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot: Christ washed the feet of Judas. ~George Marion McClellan from “The Feet of Judas” in The Book of American Negro Poetry 1922
Ford Maddox Brown — Washing Peter’s Feet
As an aide in a rest home caring for the crippled feet of the elderly, as a medical student in an inner city hospital seeing the homeless whose socks had to be peeled off carefully to avoid pulling off gangrenous toes, as a doctor working with the down and out detox patients from the streets who had no access to soap and water for weeks,
I’ve washed feet as part of my job.
People always protest, just as Peter did when Jesus started to wash his feet. We never believe our feet, those homely gnarled bunioned claw-toed calloused parts of us, deserve that attention, and certainly not love.
We are ashamed to have someone care about them, care for them, when we don’t care enough on our own.
I have never washed the feet of someone about to betray me, leading me to my death.
I have never had my feet washed by someone who understood my heart needed cleansing even more than my feet, who loved me that much.
Until now.
This one thing should not be forgot: Kneeling, He wears the humility and towels of a servant as His only raiments. He gently cups our heels in His palms, washes and dries our soles and arches and toes, but our hearts are held, still beating, in His loving hands.
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The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. ~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”
What took Him to this wretched place What kept Him on this road? ~Stuart Townend and Keith Getty from “Gethesemane”
photo by Bob Tjoelker
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept. Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move, maybe the lake far away, where once he walked as on a blue pavement, lay still and waited, wild awake. Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not keep that vigil, how they must have wept, so utterly human, knowing this too must be a part of the story. ~Mary Oliver from “Gethsemane”
You could not watch one hour with me–James Tissot
Today marks the crushing of Christ in the Garden of the Oil Press: Gethsemane -a place of olive trees treasured for the fine oil delivered from their fruit. And so, on this night, the pressure is turned up high on the disciples, not just on Jesus.
The disciples are expected, indeed commanded, to keep watch alongside the Master, to be filled with prayer, to avoid the temptation of their weakened flesh at every turn.
But they fail pressure testing and fall apart.
Like them, I am easily lulled by complacency, by my over-indulged satiety for material comforts that do not truly fill hunger or quench thirst, by my expectation that being called a follower of Jesus is somehow enough.
It is not enough. I fail the pressure test as well. I don’t wait and watch.
I fall asleep through His anguish. I dream, oblivious, while He sweats blood. I give Him up with a kiss. I might even deny I know Him when I’m pressed hard.
Yet, the moment of His betrayal becomes the moment He is glorified, thereby God is glorified and we are saved.
Crushed, bleeding, poured out over the world – He becomes the sacrifice that anoints us.
Incredibly, mysteriously, indeed miraculously, He loves us anyway, broken as we are, because He knows broken like no other.
Van Gogh – Olive Grove 1889
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
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The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future. ~Alfred North Whitehead from The Aims of Education
It can happen like that: meeting at the market, buying tires amid the smell of rubber, the grating sound of jack hammers and drills, anywhere we share stories, and grace flows between us.
The tire center waiting room becomes a healing place as one speaks of her husband’s heart valve replacement, bedsores from complications. A man speaks of multiple surgeries, notes his false appearance as strong and healthy.
I share my sister’s death from breast cancer, her youngest only seven. A woman rises, gives her name, Mrs. Henry, then takes my hand. Suddenly an ordinary day becomes holy ground. ~ Stella Nesanovich, “Everyday Grace,” from Third WednesdayVol. IX, No. 4, 2016
From Meyers’ studio Munich 1899
She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her. Mark 14:8-9
Rubens’ Mary Anointing of Jesus
We naturally wonder if our actions on this earth are pleasing to God, though we understand our faith, rather than good works we do, is the key to salvation. Jesus’ response to Mary of Bethany’s anointing of His feet the day before He enters Jerusalem is provocative on a number of levels. However, her story parallels the passion of this Passion week:
Mary acts out of faith even when she confronts a painful reality. She acknowledges Jesus’ predictions of His death and burial. Mary believes what His disciples refuse to hear.
Jesus prays a few days later to have the reality of suffering lifted from Him, but in obedience, He perseveres out of faith and love for the Father.
Mary acts out of her steadfast love for the Master–she is showing single-minded devotion in the face of criticism from the disciples.
Jesus, on the cross, shows forgiveness and love even to the men who deride and execute Him.
Mary acts out of significant personal sacrifice–pouring costly perfume worth a full year’s wages–showing her commitment to Christ.
Jesus willingly gives the ultimate sacrifice of Himself–there is no higher price to pay.
Mary responds to His need–she recognizes that this moment is her opportunity to anoint the living Christ, and His response clearly shows He is deeply moved by her action.
Jesus, as man Himself, recognizes humanity’s need to be saved, and places Himself in our place. We must respond, incredulous, with gratitude.
Jesus tells Mary of Bethany (and us), in response to the disciples’ rebukes, that it is her action that will be told and remembered. She did what she could at that moment to ease His distress at what He would soon confront. She did what she could for Him–humbly, beautifully, simply, sacrificially–and He is so grateful that He Himself washes the feet of His disciples a few days later in a personal act of devotion and servanthood.
And today we remember this Mary as the harbinger of His suffering and death, just as He said we would.
She did what she could, finding holy ground is Christ Himself — as should we.
James Tissot
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
No matter how deep our darkness, He is deeper still. ~Corrie ten Boom from The Hiding Place
Then Jesus told them: You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. John 12:35
I think he planned it, sort of, from the start; whether he knew they’d choose the fruit or not, he scattered hints around the garden, what to do in case they got themselves kicked out. A shirt of fur around the lamb. The stream converting water into syllables. Bamboo pipes. The caps of mushrooms round as wheels. Bluebirds composing tunes. He knew nothing they started later would be new. Except he didn’t factor in the thorns, how they would smart as Adam—leaving—drove one through his foot. How clever Romans would invent a crown. He didn’t figure weeds could break His heart. ~Jeanne Murray Walker “Foreknowledge”
Thoughts on Holy Tuesday:
Many older people when stressed with illness, while hospitalized or disrupted from their routine, will become disoriented, even confused in the evening, unable to sleep, or be at ease. It is referred to as “sundowning” by the care providers who must try to keep an older patient safe, calm and oriented to time and place.
It isn’t at all clear what is happening in the brain as the sun goes down, but over the years of watching this happen in my patients, I think it is a very primal fear response to loss of light. We don’t know where we are lost in the dark. We don’t know what is out there that may hurt us.
Jesus knew the dangers of the night, both as God and as man. As the Light of the World, soon to hang from the cross as the sky blackened and the sun was covered over, His illumination will dim and die.
At that moment, both God and man are plunged into enveloping darkness: an extreme “sundowning” where all hope is lost, and we can lose our way.
Yet if we stay rooted to Jesus, not leave the cross, we can put down our heavy burden and rest. We can celebrate the arrival of brilliant light in our lives. Instead of darkness overcoming us, our lives are covered in the glory and grace of Resurrection Day.
The Son settled among us. Darkness can no longer overtake us, even at death. The Light will illuminate the path we are meant to take.
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
Lyrics: What if instead of more violence We let our weapons fall silent? No more revenge or retribution No more war or persecution.
It could be beautiful.
What if instead of our judgment We soften our hearts that have hardened? Instead of certainty and pride We love and sacrifice.
It could be beautiful.
Can we see the other as our brother? Can we sing the darkness to light? Sounding chords of compassion and grace Set the swords of judgement aside
Let mercy’s eyes See the other human face. ~Kyle Pederson
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The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,
“Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” John 12: 12-15
On the outskirts of Jerusalem the donkey waited. Not especially brave, or filled with understanding, he stood and waited.
How horses, turned out into the meadow, leap with delight! How doves, released from their cages, clatter away, splashed with sunlight.
But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited. Then he let himself be led away. Then he let the stranger mount.
Never had he seen such crowds! And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen. Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.
I hope, finally, he felt brave. I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him, as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward. ~Mary Oliver “The Poet thinks about the donkey” from her book Thirst.
With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings…
The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet. G. K. Chesterton from “The Donkey”
Palm Sunday is a day of dissonance and dichotomy in the church year, very much like the donkey who figured as a central character that day.
Sadly, a donkey gets no respect, then or now – for his plain and awkward hairy looks, for his loud and inharmonious voice, for his apparent lack of strength — yet he was the chosen mode of transportation for an unlikely King riding to His death.
There was a motley parade to Jerusalem: cloaks and palms at the feet of the donkey bearing the Son of God, disorderly shouts of adoration and blessings, the rebuke of the Pharisees to quiet the people.
His response was “even the stones will cry out” about what is to come.
But the welcoming crowd waving palm branches, shouting sweet hosannas and laying down their cloaks did not understand the fierce transformation to come, did not know within days they would be a mob shouting words of derision and rejection and condemnation.
The donkey knew because he had been derided, rejected and condemned himself, yet still kept serving. Just as he was given voice and understanding centuries before to protect Balaam from going the wrong way, he could have opened his mouth to tell them, suffering beatings for his effort.
Instead, just as he bore the unborn Jesus to Bethlehem, stood over Him sleeping in the manger, bore a mother and child all the way to Egypt to hide from Herod, the donkey keeps his secret well.
Who, after all, would ever listen to a mere donkey?
Even so, we would do well to pay attention to this braying wisdom.
The donkey knows – he’s a believer.
He bears the burden we have shirked. He treads with heavy heart over the palms and cloaks we lay down as meaningless symbols of honor. He is the ultimate servant to the Servant who laid aside His crown.
A day of dichotomy — of honor and glory laid underfoot only to be stepped on, of blessings and praise turning to curses, of the beginning of the end becoming a new beginning for us all.
And so Jesus wept, knowing all this. I suspect the donkey bearing Him wept as well, in his own simple, plain, and honest way, and I’m quite sure he kept it as his special secret.
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Zechariah 9:9
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
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