Lent Devotional

photo by Ranier N. / Flickr

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
    and by night, but find no rest.

The first thought that pops into my head when I read this is Mark 15:34 when Jesus quotes this Psalm by saying “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”. I have never liked that part of the story. I always struggle with why Christ’s death had to occur the way it did. Me being me, I want to swoop in and if not take Jesus far far away from the cross at least give him a big hug and hold him as he dies so he is not alone. Like at the end of Les Miserables when Fantine is there to lead Jean Valjean from his death surrounded by his family and everyone is united in song. But in the end Jesus did not get a musical ending of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. Instead, he died in the manner Rome killed those who it felt threatened by.

But Psalm 22 places this line in a slightly different context.  The author says despite feeling forsaken by God and all alone he still trusts in God. He trust in God is like his ancestors where those who cried out were heard and not put to shame. This is similar to a deal I made with the universe a long time ago. I would trust it would all work out in the end but I don’t give up my right to complain. This is a tension I am able to use to both feel empowered and to feel safe about the future.

Most people face points in their lives when it seems like absolutely everything is going wrong and there is no one to listening to them or is willing to take the time and effort to understand what they are going through. Psalm 22 says when we feel this way we need to cry out, we need to yell, and say “Does anyone care about me? Why won’t anyone help me?”

When we do this we need to trust we will find we are not as alone as we think. Instead of our crying out pushing people away, our crying is likely to draw people in who want to help you. As is shown repeatedly in the bible when people “cry out” to the lord, he listens and starts to put into action a plan to help them.

- Lisa Rothman

photo by Dmitri Korobtsov / Flickr

From noon until three in the afternoon the whole earth was dark. At three, Jesus cried out with a loud shout, “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani,” which means, “My God, my God, why have you left me?” After hearing him, some standing there said, “Look! He’s calling Elijah!” Someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, and put it on a pole. He offered it to Jesus to drink, saying, “Let’s see if Elijah will come to take him down.” But Jesus let out a loud cry and died. The curtain of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion, who stood facing Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “This man was certainly God’s Son.” – Mark 15:33-39 (Common English Bible)

It’s Good Friday. Which, upon reflection, hardly feels “Good.” Tonight during worship, we will read this passage from Mark, sit with the uncomfortable (and even horrible) image of Jesus dying a brutal death on a cross, and watch as the altar is stripped and the sanctuary plunged into darkness.

Growing up, I dreaded Good Friday. Sure, it was a day off from school, but one that was spent sitting for hours in church, reflecting on this mystical gift of Jesus dying for my sins that I really didn’t connect with. I just couldn’t get to what was so “good “about this day. I envied the Easter-Christmas people, who could skip straight over the melancholy of Good Friday and get right to the dressed up, dyed Easter egged joy of Sunday.

Then came the Holy Week when I was a teenager that changed it all for me. Our youth group was gathering with all the other Christian youth in town for a revival of sorts at the Baptist church. I remember sinking sullenly into my seat to watch an old video, preparing to get beaten over the head with blood and death imagery that I knew would only turn me off more to Good Friday.

Instead a booming pastor’s voice echoed through the sanctuary, with variations of the same phrase over and over again, causing me to slowly sit up and listen.

“It’s Friday. Jesus is dead on the cross. It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. The disciples have gone to hide, feeling abandoned, giving up on their ministry. But that’s cause it’s Friday. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. Folks think they can’t alter anything in their communities. But it’s only Friday. And Sunday’s coming.”

The pastor went on and on, with a giant roar every time he got to “Sunday’s coming”, to the point where all of us were yelling it along with him. And suddenly it clicked for me.

Life is full of Fridays. We all know them. They are not only the Friday we honor today, where Jesus cried out in his moment of feeling left by God, but the “Fridays” in our own lives where we also feel abandoned by God and others we depend on. They are not just the Friday where the disciples ran from their ministry, but the Fridays where we too run scared and fail to do all we can for our neighbors and each other in need.

I realized that day in the Baptist church that if I skipped straight to the pomp and circumstance of Easter, I’d miss the Good News that comes with living from Friday to Sunday. The gift of Easter comes after we have recognized the Fridays in our own lives and that of our broken world, yet dare to claim the joy and promise that God isn’t finished with us yet. Sunday is coming and new life is on its way.

It’s Good Friday. Don’t skip it. But live with hope that Sunday IS coming.

- Kristin Kumpf

photo by brtsergio / Flickr

Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:32–43 (New Revised Standard Version)

My dad’s been a church musician for years. I cut my musical teeth filling in where needed: whichever instrument, whichever voice part. Also: whichever role in the large-scale musicals the church staged, where I was an odd combination of ringer and gofer. Sometimes I sang the role that was too high or too difficult for others. Other times I was called on for thankless work, like the time I had to understudy—not play, understudy—the back half of a two-man donkey costume.

One role fell into both categories. My dad cast me as the criminal who dies on Jesus’ right, mostly because we had this great wailing epic of a song for the character to sing. But first I had to hang on a cross for what seemed like hours, wearing just this weird diaper thing, while Jesus and the choir sang last word after last word. (Pity the guy on Jesus’ left; at least I got a song.)

My much-younger sister has a vivid childhood memory of walking into church and seeing me hanging up there. First she was scared. Then she figured out that it was a play, but she was confused because she hadn’t heard that I was playing Jesus. Finally she realized that I wasn’t — I was just some other guy being crucified.

We don’t always remember the two unnamed criminals who die alongside Jesus.

And even when we do, we tend to see them mostly for their contrast with him: Jesus is God; they are not. They are champion sinners; he’s the only sinless one. In Luke’s telling, one of the two finds redemption just before death, while Jesus is the one proclaiming this redemption. They’re foils.

But that’s at best half the story. We’re near the climactic point of Luke’s gospel here. By now we’ve seen endless examples of one of this book’s central themes: that Jesus is most at home not with society’s leaders but with its outcasts. The extra crosses may seem like an insult-to-injury kind of thing: why should the incarnate God be executed—and in the company of common criminals? But Luke gives us reason to imagine that Jesus might have seen their presence as an honor, a small comfort in his agony.

And another thing: in this case, Jesus isn’t slumming it with people way beneath him on society’s ladder. He’s a criminal, too.

The criminal on the right tells the other one that they “are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong,” and it’s easy for us to hear this as, “We’re real criminals, but he was wrongly convicted.” But the man’s previous sentence is key: “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?” All three of them are condemned criminals. Jesus isn’t put to death by a horrible judicial mistake; he’s tried and condemned according to the law of the land.

The problem is that the law of the land is itself deeply violent and unjust.

So when I see an image of three crosses, I don’t think of the fact that Jesus was made to die among people who were so much less than he was. I think of the fact that my God is a criminal—and that his life, death and resurrection subvert the power of unjust earthly rulers and ultimately overthrow it.

- Steve Thorngate

photo by Javier Corbo / Flickr

Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas the high priest, in whose house the scribes and the elders had gathered. But Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest; and going inside, he sat with the guards in order to see how this would end. Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.’” The high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?” But Jesus was silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has blasphemed! Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict?” They answered, “He deserves death.” – Matthew 26:57-66 (New Revised Standard Version)

In some translations, this text is given a headline “The Trial.” While true, it is not quite accurate. Sandwiching a word like “Unjust” or “Unfair” in between the other two might make what is happening in this text a little more clear. Jesus isn’t going to get a fair trial. Those arrested in the middle of the night by angry mobs generally don’t receive due process.

This being said, Jesus doesn’t do much to save his life, either. He was pretty articulate. He could have explained away the temple reference. Instead, he speaks in riddle. But would they really have understood had he told the truth? His way of love was so foreign to them that they couldn’t live with it. Peter was afraid to say he was a part of it.

We, too, face trials this week. We face trials of our faith. We see it happening with the proposal of school closures in Chicago that many fear will widen economic and racial divides. We see it happening in gun violence that continues to plague our city streets. We see it in the unjust marriage laws that face a trial of their own this week. All of this has us wondering: Will love end up victorious, or will those afraid of love extinguish it?

Today, and throughout the week ahead, we show how we are in love with our God, but also how deeply we are in need of our God. The hours and the week ahead is a time full of tensions and ambiguity. The liturgies of Holy Week invite us to live in that tension for six days, just as that tension lives in us.

We live in the tensions this week not because weʼre anxious to see how the story will end. In that sense, we have quite an advantage over the crowds of Jesusʼ day. We already know the ending of this weekʼs story: Easter is coming; new life will have the final word.

But Easterʼs not here yet.

In these days, we are invited to bring our full selves to journey with Jesus. To stand trial with him. Our faithfulness and our doubt. Our hopefulness and our brokenness. Our purpose and our pain.

We journey through Holy Week with all the tensions of our full humanity not because we wonder how the story ends, but because we know.

Easter is coming, when the Risen Lord will come to claim our whole selves— our full humanity: tensions and all. Not just our Sunday best, and not just our sinful worst, but all of us.

Until Saturday, we live in the contrasts that this trial brings to light.

Easter is coming. But we have some work to do first.

- Nadia Stefko and Matthew Johnson

photo by Jobs with Justice / Flickr

While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.

Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.”

Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

In that hour Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled. - Matthew 26:47-56 (New International Version)

“For all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” As if Christ’s words were a sword, this quote has always struck me. What really moves me about this quote is that even though Christ was being threatened and betrayed, he remained peaceful and let “the writings of the prophets” be fulfilled. Jesus knows his purpose and even despite the fact that he knows he will tortured and crucified, he still realizes that this is the burden he must bear, the sacrifice that his body will become. He is defying the Pharisees. In a way, Jesus is performing an act of civil disobedience.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines civil disobedience as “a refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a  nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government.” The first time the term was used was by Henry David Thoreau in 1866 in his writings. However, Jesus used this term centuries before Thoreau even thought of it. Jesus was refusing to obey the Pharisees and chief priests. He expels the money changers from the Temple (Matthew 21:12-17), he often eats with sinners and tax collectors (Luke 19:1-10), and works on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-27). Jesus refuses to obey the demands of the Pharisees and chief priests by demonstrating nonviolent action. Instead of taking up the sword and killing the people who came to take him away to be tortured and crucified, he says to lay down the sword.

I grew up where this quote was used often—“For all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” Many times my parents took me on peace marches, rallies, sit-ins, and protests. My parents were the living, breathing examples of this quote and civil disobedience. Even when I was in the womb my mother carried me on a march through Times Square protesting the Persian Gulf War with friends from my father’s seminary. And when I was older my father carried me on his shoulders as we sang “We shall overcome” on numerous workers’ rights marches. My father, ever since I could remember, has been involved with an interfaith activist group called Interfaith Worker Justice.

He, being a Methodist pastor, worked with other clergy from all faiths— rabbis, nuns, priests, monks and Muslim religious leaders. I remember when I was a sophomore in high school I stayed up late one night to write a paper. My father came home at around one in the morning. I asked him why he was home so late and he said that he had been arrested and went to jail. I smiled. He had been arrested for performing civil disobedience in opposition to an executive refusal to allow janitorial staff to unionize at the downtown mall. He had followed in Jesus’ footsteps by refusing to obey the orders of a higher, governmental power that was in turn hurting the working class. Even today, we can easily apply Jesus’ words to the work of peace and justice that we have before us.

- Emma Cushman Wood

photo by seetheholyland / Flickr

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. He said to the disciples, “Stay here while I go and pray over there.” When he took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, he began to feel sad and anxious. Then he said to them, “I’m very sad. It’s as if I’m dying. Stay here and keep alert with me.” Then he went a short distance farther and fell on his face and prayed, “Abba, if it’s possible, take this cup of suffering away from me. However—not what I want but what you want.”

He came back to the disciples and found them sleeping. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you stay alert one hour with me? Stay alert and pray so that you won’t give in to temptation. The spirit is eager, but the flesh is weak.” 

A second time he went away and prayed, “My Father, if it’s not possible that this cup be taken away unless I drink it, then let it be what you want.”

Again he came and found them sleeping. Their eyes were heavy with sleep. But he left them and again went and prayed the same words for the third time. Then he came to his disciples and said to them, “Will you sleep and rest all night? Look, the time has come for the Human One to be betrayed into the hands of sinners.  Get up. Let’s go. Look, here comes my betrayer.”- Matthew 26:36-46 (Common English Bible)

When I read this passage I can’t help but think of my recent trip to Israel and Palestine, one of my favorite days there was visiting the Garden of Gethsemane. The entire region is covered with gorgeous yet haunting olive trees, for these types of trees are not majestic like red woods or well manicured like bonsai. These trees show their wear and tear, they twist and gnarl with age and how they have been tended to. The Garden of Gethsemane have some of the oldest olive trees in the world at 900 years, if trees could talk.

I had always wondered if Jesus had chosen this place for a reason, as a place of peace, as a place to grieve, as a place for comfort. If he did, what was it about this garden that he connected to so much? Once I saw these trees I could see how this place would have empathized with Jesus’ pain, with the twisting of sorrow and gnarling of grief that his disciples could not know as they were overcome with slumber. This is one of the most vulnerably human accounts of Jesus in the gospels, dealing with pain, doubt, betrayal, all things that we have all felt. Some of us show our wear and tear more visibly than others but these are human experiences that we know all too well are reflected in the last hours of Jesus’ life. Our pain is deeply known and felt “even to death.” I also know that while the divine reached out to know human pain, my human limitations often keep me in a slumber to the pain of others. Even when they are being gnarled and twisted right in front of me.

During many of the conflicts the region of Israel Palestine has seen, olive trees have been burned and destroyed to limit economic growth of the “other.” Olive trees are known to store life giving water and minerals in their trunks so that even a small portion of the tree that is left after destruction will regenerate with new life, some of these trees going through this experience multiple times. As the new life breaks the surface of the ground, it’s potential life is dependent upon the surrounding trees that have survived but have probably been weathered in similar ways before. They surround the seedling with protection from the wind, shade from the beating sun and being trampled on out in the open.

I like to think that we have the same capacity within ourselves, that out of our own experience with pain, vulnerability and suffering that we can reach out to give new life to others who are experiencing the gnarly times. That as we age, wear and tear that we expose the roots of that pain to others so that we may find what Jesus was searching for in Gethsemane that evening, what Jesus exposed in his own vulnerability as our need for new life.

- Britt Cox

photo by sharyn morrow / Flickr

But your loyal love, Lord, extends to the skies;
    your faithfulness reaches the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the strongest mountains;
    your justice is like the deepest sea.
        Lord, you save both humans and animals.
Your faithful love is priceless, God!
    Humanity finds refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the bounty of your house;
    you let them drink from your river of pure joy.
Within you is the spring of life.
    In your light, we see light.

- Psalm 36:5-9 (Common English Bible)

In elementary school in Oklahoma City in the early 60′s we began every day with the Pledge of Allegiance, the first verse of the Star Spangled Banner, and either My Country Tis of Thee or America the Beautiful.  By the time I became a teacher in 1978 we had come to a different place and the messiness of defining religious freedom for all people changed the way we express our faith in public institutions.  And while I am certain God did not intend these passages solely for an America that was thousands of years from inception- I read this passage and began to hum,

“Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain;
for purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed his grace on thee,
and crown thy good with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea!”

I have always looked for God in the beauty that surrounds us.  When I am restless and confused, grieving or sad, frustrated, lacking direction, I take a walk- I search for that light in the darkness to guide my way.  In the year since I moved back to Chicago from the towering mountains of the west and the sprawling desert of Arizona, I often head to the lake.  I stand on the shore and look out at the vast body of water and the skyline and think about the wonders that have been wrought by God’s hand and those he has made possible through the talent and perseverance of mankind.  And while I have loved the beauty of new snow and the smell of cold rain, this time of year I am thinking about that spring break trip to the ocean and the relentless crashing of waves on the shore.  These experiences often bring a sense of calm to what can be a chaotic life; a sense that God is there, in the vastness of nature and humanity, waiting to be discovered, if only we trust and have faith that his love is meant for all of us, not just a chosen few.

Walking along enjoying my fragile peace, inevitably I look up and ask,” So with all of this beauty, why so much suffering?  Why so much evil?”  Where is the refuge for all of humanity, the unfailing love, for those who are sitting homeless on the cold park bench I just passed, or the victims of crime-both the desperate lives that lead the perpetrators to criminal acts and those that suffer the consequences of their actions? Where is God in the sorrow and devastation of tragic death, world hunger, and natural disasters?  Don’t we all struggle with the imperfections of the world- the dichotomy of love and grace for all and the ever present suffering inherent in this world?

The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote this passage in 1903 in “Letters to a Young Poet.”

“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

Some things have no answers- and I know I often drive myself crazy looking for them anyway. The business of living requires patience and a willingness to be open to the wisdom that can be gained by just being fully present in our world- yet there is a universal truth waiting for all of us willing to take that leap of faith, willing to believe in that which we cannot see.  Isn’t that the promise of Easter?  The last lines of the Psalm remind us, ”Within you is the spring of life. In your light, we see light.”  God’s light, freely given, is our refuge from the darkness, our hope for ourselves and all humanity.  We just have to turn on the switch.

- Penny Kotterman

Lent is a trying time for me. On multiple occasions this season, I have said that Lent is a Sisyphean endeavor … like pushing a boulder up a mountain, or dragging a tree up a hill. I suppose that means I’m doing it right. Or at least I’m in the right spirit of it all.

I know there are those who disagree with the Lenten season, saying we Christians shouldn’t practice it because we are a people who believe the ultimate trials and suffering have already been endured by Jesus. We shouldn’t revel in trials because the verdict has already been read. Jesus has been found worthy of life. And we get to have the happily ever after.

But do we, really? Have we reached the fairytale ending for humanity? While this may be the story that is perpetuated — that it is always Easter for Christians — it is also just a fairy tale. You don’t have to go far to find that Easter is still the (albeit beautiful) exception to the rule. The joy of resurrection is more like one shoot of a flower pushing through the darkness of winter than it is a teeming equatorial rainforest. Because, for every celebration we can imagine, there are exponentially more sufferings and injustices that roll by in our dreams unnoticed. Scan the headlines, listen to your conversations about politics, consider the latest gossip: it is like a wasteland of trials and tribulations.

We live in a Lent kind of world. And that is likely what makes this season so abrasive … it tears away the bandages and exposes the wounds we keep hiding. Lent doesn’t allow us to keep answering “I’m fine” when we are asked how we are doing individually and collectively. No, Chip Diller. All is not well.

It may not look like it on the outside, but we are all running around and screaming in some way. Be it from simple anxiety or fear for our life itself, we’re all enduring some kind of trial. And, while it may seem a bit macabre, I take some comfort in that. I am comforted in knowing that I am not alone in my suffering; that my trials are not a unique experience. It is there that I can find empathy.

One of the greatest blessings of this Lent has come in hearing all the different voices of the Holy Covenant community be vulnerable through our daily Lent Devotionals. Not only have I been discovering things about those who post, but I have also been learning about myself. I’ve been learning about the bandages that I put on the stories of scripture to make them more Easterish. I’m learning the hue of my lens by looking at the world through the lenses of others. And there is something life-giving about this. Journeying together, the trials seem more bearable. The impossible seems a little more hopeful. A lesson of the cross may be that Jesus walked and died alone to remind us how ludicrous it is for us to do the same.

As we head into Holy Week, I am choosing to enter into the world more than recess from it. In addition to all the Holy Week worship services, I’m going to add myself to the many who will join in CROSSwalk II this Friday to remember the victims of violence in Chicago. And Monday, I will add my body to the many who will gather at Federal Plaza to rally for Marriage Equality. Because there are some rocks I don’t have to push alone. And there are some rocks that I can’t push alone.

If you aren’t in Chicago, I would encourage you to find the places where you can stand in the gaps in your own neighborhood as the penultimate days of Lent arrive. Find the places that make you uncomfortable … the places forgotten by so many who claim to be “Easter” people. It is there that you may see that shoot emerge and catch a glimpse of the resurrection to come.

And if what you’ve got now is all you can handle, please let me know how I can walk with you.

Prayers for you all as we walk the last miles together.

Pastor Matthew

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photo by Calsidyrose / Flickr

As he approached Bethpage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’” Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them.

As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

 They replied, “The Lord needs it.”

They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

- Luke 19:29-40 (New International Version)

Am I ready? There is a certain level of preparedness I like to have in almost every aspect of my life. I like to be prepared at work, prepared for church meetings, and even have a list prepared before going to the grocery store. However, when it comes to thinking about being “ready” for what God needs me to do, I somehow feel extremely unprepared. In this passage I think of myself as the colt, completely unprepared and unaware of what is about to be asked of me. How it must have felt being untied and led down the road to Jesus, unknowing that soon that colt would be the servant carrying Jesus to the crowd of cheering people. It reminds me that in my daily life when I don’t understand why I’m being led down different paths, that God may have something in mind that I just don’t understand at the moment. At those times, all I can hope is that my stubbornness doesn’t get the best of me. That I don’t lay down and refuse to be led. I hope I will be ready and open for being led to where Jesus needs me to serve.

When I read the last two verses, it makes me think of one of my favorite quotes. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Martin Luther King Jr. I think the meaning of the last two verses are two-fold, that we both cannot be silent about our praise and love for God, as well as that we cannot sit silently while witnessing injustice to our brothers and sisters. Christianity calls us to vocalize our passion for God and stand up for what we believe in. I am not a nice person just because I’m “nice”, I’m a nice person because I’m a Christian. Likewise the reason I write my IL House of Representatives for marriage equality is not because I am “nice” it’s because I’m a Christian and it’s important to show God’s love for all.

I love the season of Lent for the reflection that it brings. It’s a solemn time to spend 40 days reflecting on the sacrifice of Jesus and getting to spiritually walk with him to his crucifixion. It makes me wonder what I would have done in the crowd if I saw Jesus struggling carrying the cross. Would I jump in to help him or would I stand hidden as part of the crowd trying not to be seen? Would I see the violence in Chicago and choose to help in the movement or ignore it to continue to only walk in my safe neighborhood? Am I ready?

- Allison Chaplain

photo by lism / Flickr

All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.

They made his grave with the wicked
and his tomb with the rich,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
When you make his life an offering for sin,
he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.

Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant,
shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.

- Isaiah 53:6-11 (New Revised Standard Version)

We like sheep have gone astray, and the loyal disciple still suffers…but out of the anguish there will be light. The author of Isaiah appears to be offering encouragement here. Isaiah is reminding the initial audience, and us, of God’s promises, even when we are suffering and wander off. Even though we go astray, God IS present still, and persistent faith and discipleship will finally be made complete with God’s grace, some how. But, is suffering God’s will?

Suffering is not hard for us to see in the winter in Chicago, or in a time when the violence, poverty, war, abuse and disease from all around the world are visible to us instantly on our computers and televisions. Is it really God’s will to crush us with pain? I believe not.  Yet, there is suffering still. What I hope, and trust is that God’s will remains present in our suffering. I believe that the source of all love, and goodness and creativity reigns in our world, even as we, like sheep, go astray, and even when we are in the depths of pain.

As a follower of Christ in the season of Lent, this passage reminds me again that Christ entered the world in the midst of its brokenness. God comes where there is homelessness and addiction to power, sex trafficking and PTSD. God seeks to transform the world, and each of us, not in our better moments and goodness, but as we really are. Through God’s redemption, the pain becomes the pearl, so to speak.

Our pain, offered to God, has the potential to transform us and the world in which we live. Just as God used the ugliness of Christ’s crucifixion to achieve reconciliation with humankind, God can use our errors and our pain to advance the kingdom of God. To follow Christ means, for me, to face the pain, to enter into the pain where I may, and to locate God there. To participate in the transformation and healing of myself, other people and the world, the wounds need to be recognized, and God welcomed there.

May I remember to care for those around me who suffer and those who cause pain, and be open to God’s movement there. And, may my pains, too, be an offering to God, that God might use them to do something amazing. And may I celebrate every time struggle morphs into healing and joy.

- Polly Toner