April 26 -  Ps 88; Job 19:21-27; Heb. 4:1-16

Psalm 88. How bleak… How desolate… How lonely…  How utterly hopeless. A life full of woe. On death’s doorstep. Hated. Friendless. Forgotten.

What an absolutely apropos psalm to close out Lent, one that speaks of hitting rock bottom emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

But then there’s truth to the old cliché, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”  And for those of faith, what a wicked dawn it ‘s going to be!!

Ps. 118: "O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!"

Good Friday - It is late April but it is very cold and grey outside. Will Spring ever come? Psalm 118 reminds us that we are planted and rooted in the soil of God’s nourishing love. When life’s difficulties surround us, when the day is dark with rain, when unexpected storms lash with fury, it may feel like God has abandoned us. This is the difficult part of a spiritual spring that tries our patience, our faith. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus called out from the cross. By taking on a human body, experiencing the worst kind of betrayal and misunderstanding, Jesus shows us that no form of human suffering is beyond God’s knowledge. Thus even as we remember on Good Friday the astonishing compassion of Christ – to suffer with us – we have also been rehearsing the songs for Easter Sunday, gathering treats for the children’s Easter baskets, living our lives in the light of the Resurrection and sharing that light with others.

Perhaps it is indeed very right that today is cold and grey. It's Good Friday. The reservoir of God’s love, the compassion of Christ’s suffering, are always present when we remember God is with us. “Into your hands I commend my spirit,” Jesus said in his final moments, taking refuge in the Lord. As he embodied God’s love, Jesus became the “cornerstone” that persists beneath the rain and winds, sun and heat, outlasting our hopes and fears. Let us give thanks to the Lord whose love endures forever.

Tuesday in Holy Week:  Isaiah 49:1-7, I Corinthians 1:18-21; John 12:20-36, Psalm 71

Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.

Psalm 71 is an older person’s prayer for help in times of distress.  Anyone who has lived a few years has undoubtedly experienced some form of distress whether illness, broken relationships, the loss of a loved one, or just moments of feeling alone and lonely.  The psalmist is reaching out to God with a reminder that you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.  This does not appear to be a person whining to God or feeling victimized by his/her enemies; rather, the Psalmist shares his hope and trust that just as God has provided refuge in his youth, so as he ages, will God continue to be his rock.

Jesus expressed that same trust in the Father during his last public conversation in the Gospel for today.  The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  He reminds listeners that it was for this purpose that he was sent and reminds us all that unless we die to our self, we cannot live.  Jesus cautions us to walk in the light, not in the darkness.

As we journey through this Holy Week, let us pray that God will hold our feet to the fire of His grace and make us attentive to our mortality that we may begin to die now to those things that keep us from walking in the light with Christ and our neighbors on this earth.  Let us pray with the Psalmist (regardless of our age) O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to all the generations to come.

Today’s psalm is, by tradition, a psalm of David associated with David’s repentance for his great sin of adultery with Bathsheba, which the prophet Nathan challenged him to face up to and take responsibility for.  For David, facing the ugly truth about himself was a step in his spiritual maturation.  It seems fitting that we read this as we head into Holy Week, remembering the terrible betrayals of Jesus by the crowds who welcomed him as he entered Jerusalem, and by his own disciples during his arrest, trial, and crucifixion.  It is a time for us to face up to our own failings, to the ways in which we fall short of being the disciples we could be. 

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
   and renew a steadfast spirit within me….

My sacrifice, O God, is^[b] a broken spirit;
   a broken and contrite heart
   you, God, will not despise.

At first glance it seems odd that God would want us to have a broken spirit and heart – it doesn’t seem like the God of compassion and forgiveness, who Jesus so consistently teaches about, would take joy in our distress.  I suspect that God “will not despise” our brokenness because it is in our brokenness, when the walls of our defenses come down, that we are most open to God’s presence.  I know that it is when I am most in touch with my own powerlessness that I most know my own need of God.

Today, and throughout this sacred week, I pray that I can be honest with myself about my own failings – God already knows them – so that I can more completely commit myself to the One who was willing to take up the cross for my sake.

Today as I listen to the passion, I imagine myself on the journey with Jesus to Calvary. Some years ago I walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. Someone said to me before my travels: “I couldn’t do that, it would just be too sad.” I thought … “isn’t that the point – the sadness?” And it was sad and powerful. But the longest journey I will ever take is within my deepest depths, toward integration and holiness. The end is not significant. What is significant is the process of attaining consciousness of myself in relationship to Jesus.

Through various stages, fraught with challenges and growth, I have come to know my true self and draw closer to God. Lord of my journey, you are my way, my truth, and my life. I will spend time in prayer with Jesus’ passion as the story of my life. I have been through immeasurable sadness. Haven't we all? And I have come to learn that God is in the middle of and at the end of the sadness – God is below bottom and above top – God is waiting to embrace us as we walk through the sadness life may deal us.

This week I will spend time in prayer with Jesus’ passion as the story of my life. Like Jesus I have my own part to play in the divine plan of redemption. I pray for strength and courage to embrace the world and its suffering as Jesus did by loving and forgiving from the cross. I pray to embrace the reality of the cross as life-giving for me. And for everyone.

John 11:11:28-44

At every beginning of the year, I pray to God to help me keep my friendship with the people I love and care for.  It is important to me that I keep genuine friends.  My friends and I have a close relationship.  One of them we have known each other for over 30 years.  Whenever I call them, I do not need to get myself prepared as to how I am going to talk to them.  I do not prepare my conversations with them, we just talk freely. We laugh together, sometimes we cry together.  Martha, Mary and Lazarus had Jesus for a friend. When they needed help, they sent for him because they knew him as a friend who cares for them.  Though he did not come at once, but still he came.  He mourned with them and a miracle took place.  He called out their brother from the grave to life.  In this season of Lent, all Christians are checking themselves to find out who they are with Christ.  Some know him as a friend; others know him as a regular person who was a son of carpenter.  Some people have thousands of friends at their face book, they communicate through daily writings and everyone gets to know what is going on with their friends all over the world.  As we go on making friends, let us not forget the one who will be there for us in the time of need and despair. He rejoices with us and mourn with us.   The one who will cry with us; the one who will calls us by name and set us free from the bondages of this world.  The one who intercedes for us.  We only have to believe the rest is on his shoulders, and his cry will be heard by his heavenly father.