Holy Week: Good Friday

Psalm 22:1-2(The Message)

God, God . . . my God! Why did you dump me miles from nowhere?

Doubled up with pain, I call to God all the day long. No answer. Nothing.
I keep at it all night, tossing and turning.

Otherwise known as "My God, my God...why have you forsaken me?"

I remember as a kid listening to the "Jesus Christ Superstar" soundtrack. "Gethsemane" was my favorite song, partially because of the emotion I could hear in Ted Neely's (the actor who played Jesus) voice. (loved those high notes too!)

But then...even more gutting was this line from Psalm 22 as Jesus was on the cross. "My God...why have you forsaken me."

What? Jesus felt forsaken?

Felt doubled up in pain?  

As a child hearing that line for the first time I was floored. And it made Jesus seem real to me in a way my Sunday School lessons never had.

I like this version from the Message. As an insomniac, I've been there, tossing and turning all night.

I've been there feeling no answer.

What is Good about this Friday?

What is good about Jesus feeling forsaken?

There are surely more theological reasons that you can shake a stick at. 

But the one that today stays with me more than any other is this: that I have a God who knows me through and through. Not simply my joys, but knows me when I despair as well.

Knows what it is to feel alone or abandoned.

And that God keeps loving me.

And you...

anyway.

Lord of all, thank you for knowing us. Thank you for taking all that we had to throw at you, and sending it back as love. Amen

Holy Week: Maundy Thursday

NOTE: I am in the midst of moving to a new blog site, but given how slow my technical skills are, there's no guarantee that that will happen before summer!

So, I will try to post a little bit more often between now and then! With this being Holy Week, it seemed that now is the time to start!

John 13:34-35(The Message)

“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”

Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin: Mandatum, meaning "command" - from which we get the word, mandate.

We have a lot of things in our life that are mandated: oftentimes by our government. Enough that it is a word that might leave a bitter aftertaste in the mouths of some.

And yet the chief mandate in our lives...

The mandate given by the highest authority to those of us who call ourselves Christian is something much different than what a government can or would mandate.

We are commanded to love.

Love the same way Jesus loved.

Love to the depths of service.

Love to the depths of forgiveness.

Love to the depths of mercy.

Can a command be freeing?

This Holy Week, I find myself having a more than normal bit of stress in my life. I've been having those moments when I think to myself: "Come on...can't I catch a break? It's Holy Week. I don't need any additional stress." 

Aside from the irony of my thinking that the week in which we remember Jesus' marching toward the cross should be a time where I have less stress, or that I should "catch a break," it is ultimately this command that stops me in my tracks.

"In the same way I loved you, you love one another."

It's amazing how love smooths those edges.

Provides balm for the stressors.

Shines light on my own hypocrisy.

Reminds me that Jesus' followers come in all stripes, beliefs, opinions, behaviors, ideas, and feelings. That they also are bearing burdens I know nothing about.

That I don't hold all the cards on suffering.

That it is the mandate of love that binds us together even when we forget about it.

It is the mandate of love that frees us to rise from the other binds that keep us caught up in circles of anger, stress, and sorrow.

We are mandated to love.

And that mandate frees us.

What better day to remember that then Maundy Thursday?

Lord, help me to rise in love. Amen