Holy Week Meditation: Holy Saturday

The Old Testament begins with darkness and the last of the Gospels ends with it. "Darkness was upon the face of the deep," Genesis says. Darkness was where it all started. Before darkness, there had never been anything other than darkness, void, and without form. At the end of John, the disciples go fishing on the Sea of Tiberias. It is night. They have no luck. Their nets are empty. Then they spot somebody standing on the beach. At first they don’t see who it is in the darkness. It is Jesus.

The darkness of Genesis is broken in real majesty speaking the words of creation. "Let there be light!" That’s all it took. The darkness of John is broken by the flicker of a charcoal fire on the sand. Jesus has made it. He cooks some fish on it for his old friends’ breakfast. On the horizon there are the first pale traces of the sun getting ready to rise.

All the genius and glory of God are somehow represented by these two scenes, not to mention what Saint Paul calls God’s foolishness.

The original creation of light itself is almost too extraordinary to take in. The little cook-out on the beach is almost too ordinary to take seriously. Yet if Scripture is to be believed, enormous stakes were involved in them both and still are. Only a saint or a visionary can begin to understand God setting the very sun on fire in the heavens, and therefore God takes another tack. By sheltering a spark with a pair of cupped hands and blowing on it, the Light of the World gets enough of a fire going to make breakfast.

It’s not apt to be your interest in cosmology or even theology that draws you to it so much as it’s the empty feeling in your stomach. You don’t have to understand anything very complicated. All you’re asked is to take a step or two forward through the darkness and start digging in.

-Frederick Buechner (1926-)

Holy Week Meditation: Good Friday

…If Humanity were wise, she would stand today and sing in strength the song of conquest and the hymn of triumph.

Oh, Crucified Jesus, who art looking sorrowfully from Mount Calvary at the sad procession of the Ages, and hearing the clamor of the dark nations, and understanding the dreams of Eternity: Thou art, on the Cross, more glorious and dignified than one thousand kings upon one thousand thrones in one thousand empires. Thou art, in the agony of death, more powerful than one thousand generals in one thousand wars.

With thy sorrows, thou art more joyous than Spring with its flowers. With thy suffering, thou art more bravely silent than the crying of angels of heaven. Before thy lashers, thou art more resolute than the mountain of rock.

Thy wreath of thorns is more brilliant and sublime than the crown of Bahram. The nails piercing thy hands are more beautiful than the scepter of Jupiter. The spatters of blood upon thy feet are more resplendent than the necklace of Ishtar.

Forgive the weak who lament thee today, for they do not know how to lament themselves.
Forgive them, for they do not know that thou hast conquered death with death, and bestowed life upon the dead.
Forgive them, for they do not know that thy strength still awaits them.
Forgive them, for they do not know that every day is thy day.

-Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

Holy Week Meditation: Maundy Thursday

Sitting in the basement room in Paris surrounded by forty poor people, I was struck again by the way Jesus concluded his active life. Just before entering on the road of his passion he washed the feet of his disciples and offered them his body and blood as food and drink. These two acts belong together. They are both an expression of God's determination to show us the fullness of his love. Therefore John introduces the story of Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet with the words: "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end" (John 13:1).

What is even more astonishing is that on both occasions Jesus commands us to do the same. After washing his disciples' feet, Jesus says, "I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you" (John 13:15). After giving himself as food and drink, he says, "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19). Jesus calls us to continue his mission of revealing the perfect love of God in this world. He calls us to total self-giving. He does not want us to keep anything for ourselves. Rather, he wants our love to be as full, as radical, and as complete as his own...

The Word became flesh so as to wash my tired feet. He touches me precisely where I touch the soil, where earth connects with my body that reaches out to heaven. He kneels and takes my feet in his hands and washes them. Then he looks up at me and, as his eyes and mine meet, he says: "Do you understand what I Have done for you? If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you must wash your brothers' and sisters' feet" (John 13:13-14). As I walk the long, painful journey toward the cross, I must pause on the way to wash my neighbor's feet. As I kneel before my brothers and sisters, wash their feet, and look into their eyes, I discover that it is because of my brothers and sisters who walk with me that I can make the journey at all.

-Henri Nouwen (1932-1996)

Holy Week Meditation: Wednesday

If the praise of others elates me and their blame depresses me; if I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself; if I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more than to serve, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I crave hungrily to be used to show the way of liberty to a soul in bondage, instead of caring only that it be delivered; if I nurse my disappointment when I fail, instead of asking that to another the word of release may be given, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I do not forget about such a trifle as personal success, so that it never crosses my mind, or if it does, is never given room there; if the cup of flattery tastes sweet to me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If in the fellowship of service I seek to attach a friend to myself, so that others are caused to feel unwanted; if my friendships do not draw others deeper in, but are ungenerous (to myself, for myself), then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I refuse to allow one who is dear to me to suffer for the sake of Christ, if I do not see such suffering as the greatest honor that can be offered to any follower of the Crucified, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I slip into the place that can be filled by Christ alone, making myself the first necessity to a soul instead of leading it to fasten upon Him, then I know nothing of Calvary love...

If I wonder why something trying is allowed, and press for prayer that it may be removed; if I cannot be trusted with any disappointment, and cannot go on in peace under any mystery, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If the ultimate, the hardest, cannot be asked of me; if my fellows hesitate to ask it and turn to someone else, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I covet any place on earth but the dust at the foot of the Cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

That which I know not, teach Thou me, O Lord, my God.

-Amy Carmichael (1867-1951)

Holy Week Meditation: Tuesday

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poor:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

-"Easter Wings" George Herbert (1593-1633)

Holy Week Meditations: Monday

Over a hundred years ago in the Deep South, a phrase commonplace in our Christian culture today, born again, was seldom used. Rather, the words used to describe the breakthrough into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ were: "I was seized by the power of a great affection."

It was a profoundly moving way to indicate both the initiative of almighty God and the explosion within the human heart when Jesus becomes Lord. Seized by the power of a great affection was a visceral description of the phenomenon of Pentecost, authentic conversion, and the release of the Holy Spirit.

In March 1986 I was privileged to spend an afternoon with an Amish family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Jonas Zook, a widower, is eighty-two years old. His oldest daughter Barbara, 57, manages the household. The three other children, Rachel, 53, Elam 47, and Sam 45, are all severely retarded. When I arrived at noon with two friends, Joe and Kathy Anders, "little Elam" - about four feet tall, heavy-set, thickly bearded, and wearing the black Amish outfit with the circular hat - was coming out of the barn some fifty yards away. He had never laid eyes on me in his life, yet when he saw me step out of the car, he ran lickety-split in my direction. Two feet away, he threw himself into the air, wrapped his arms around my neck, his legs around my waist, and kissed me smack on the lips.

To say that I was stunned would be an understatement. But in the twinkling of an eye, Jesus set me free. I returned Elam's kiss. Then he jumped down, wrapped both his hands around my right arm, and led me on a tour of the farm. The Zooks raise piglets for a living.

A half-hour later at a lovely luncheon prepared by Barbara, Elam sat next to me. Midway through the meal, I turned around to say something to Joe Anders. Inadvertently, my right elbow slammed into Elam's rib cage. Hi did not wince; he did not groan. He wept like a child. His next move utterly undid me. Elam came to my chair and kissed me even harder on the lips. Then he kissed my eyes, my nose, my forehead, and my cheeks. And there was Brennan, dazed, dumbstruck, weeping, seized by the power of a great affection. In his simplicity, Elam Zook was an icon of Jesus Christ. Why? Because his love for me did not stem from any attractiveness or lovability of mine. It was not conditioned by any response on my part. Elam loved me whether I was kind or unkind, pleasant or nasty. His love arose from a source outside of himself and myself. Jesus came as the revealer of love. Jesus reveals God by being utterly transparent to him. What had been cloaked in mystery is clear in Jesus - that God is love. No man or woman has ever loved like Jesus Christ. Therein lies his divinity for me.

Jesus was seized by the power of a great affection and experienced the love of his Father in a way that burst all previous boundaries of understanding. And it is this Jesus, the wounded Jesus, who provides the final revelation of God's love. The crucified Christ is not an abstraction but the ultimate answer to how far love will go, what measure of rejection it will endure, how much selfishness and betrayal it will withstand. The unconditional love of Jesus Christ nailed to the tree does not flinch before our perversity. "He took our sicknesses away and carried our diseases for us" (Matt. 8:17).

-Brennan Manning (1934-)

(Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone.)

Holy Week Meditations: Palm Sunday

How you loved us, O good Father, who spared not even your only Son, but gave him up for us evildoers! How you loved us, for whose sake he who deemed it no robbery to be your equal was made subservient, even to the point of dying on the cross! Alone of all he was free among the dead, for he had power to lay down his life and power to retrieve it. For our sake he stood to you as both victor and victim, and victor because victim; for us he stood to you as priest and sacrifice, and priest because sacrifice, making us sons and daughters to you instead of servants by being born of you to serve us. With good reason is there solid hope for me in him, because you will heal all my infirmities through him who sits at your right hand and intercedes for us. Were it not so, I would despair. Many and grave are those infirmities, many and grave; but wider-reaching is your healing power. We might have despaired, thinking your Word remote from any conjunction with humankind, had he not become flesh and made his dwelling among us.

Filled with terror by my sins and my load of misery I had been turning over in my mind a plan to flee into solitude, but you forbade me, and strengthened me by your words. To this end Christ died for all, you reminded me, that they who are alive may live not for themselves, but for him who died for them. See, then, Lord: I cast my care upon you that I may live, and I will contemplate the wonders you have revealed. You know how stupid and weak I am: teach me and heal me. Your only Son, in whom are hidden all treasure of wisdom and knowledge, has redeemed me with his blood. Let not the proud disparage me, for I am mindful of my ransom. I eat it, I drink it, I dispense it to others, and as a poor man I long to be filled with it among those who are fed and feasted. And then do those who seek him praise the Lord.

-St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD)

Holy Week Meditations

In preparation for Easter, we have to decided to post a daily meditation during Holy Week, mostly in the form of some of the best literary works we have read over the years that are speaking of Christ's Crucifixion and Resurrection. So, tune in, we will start the postings this next Sunday.