Easter Sunday
Rejoice the Lord is risen.
Love, Grace, Restoration, Healing, Hope, Peace, Joy
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March 23, 2008
March 21, 2008
Broken ... for you and me.
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
from Isaiah 53.
Good Friday
What would it feel like to know that you had only a couple of hours left to live?
Most of the time, when we think about the last couple of days and/or hours that Jesus spent before his crucifixion, we tend to focus on what he did, which is a very right thing to do. I wonder though, as I sit here in bed at 4:30 in the morning if we might get a deeper understanding of what he did by trying to take a look to see how he might have felt.
How he felt - that would be the fully human being expressed in the fully divine. To fully know that this punch is coming towards your face and struggle to keep fully in its path because you know that it would do something beautiful in the lives of those you love. To struggle with drinking from this cup of suffering even as you know that with it comes the salve of redemption & healing.
Back to how it feels ... or might have felt.
Have you ever had an important event coming up on a certain day at a certain time? An exam? A race? Surgery? For some - a wedding or perhaps even the birth of a child? We get all nervous and fidgety don’t we? We worry about being ready and we can hardly sleep the night before. Even when I know that I am ready and well prepared, I worry that I will be there on time and not wake up long after the exam has started or the race well under way.
Now, try to feel what Jesus might have felt. His actions in that context do help us a bit in doing this. The act of spending time with those he loved and stopping in the middle of the fast moving pace of everything that is going on around him to love on them and express that love to them as best as he could. The act of an agonizing but honest time of prayer - to pray out the desires of my heart and yet acquiesce to a divine will that might have plans different from my own.
How does it feel to know that you only have a couple of hours left to live?
Grace & peace,
Deji.
March 7, 2008
Fourth Sunday in Lent
"Compulsive" is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated, or despised... . The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failing and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same - more work, more money, more friends.
from "Show Me the Way: Daily Lenten Readings" - Henri J.M. Nouwen