Saturday: Sabbath separation (Devotions for Lent from the Gospel of Mark)

The sun set on Friday, Sabbath began, and then the world fell still.  Twenty-four hours of rest.

Jesus lays in his tomb, and his family and friends grieve from afar. The week’s worship day has become their worst nightmare. They spend the Sabbath waiting for it to be over. They are waiting for the sun to set and rise again, so they might get to work.

By the light of Sunday’s sunrise, they will set out for the tomb, anoint his body with oil and spices, and leave it forever in its final resting place.

But for now, they wait.

There’s nothing to be said. There’s nothing to be done.

~~~~~

On the first Saturday of his ministry, Jesus got up before sunrise, went out alone to a deserted place, and prayed. Everyone was looking for him and no one knew where he was.

What is he doing on this Saturday?

He is lying alone in stillness of his tomb, in the most deserted place of all. Again people are longing for him, but this time they know where he is and cannot reach him.

Is he praying, even in death?

For now, we can only imagine.

Text for the day:

None. The Word is silent today.

Things to think about:

What could Jesus be doing while his body lies in the grave?

Things to do:

Grieve for those who try to kill love and life.

Jesus, help me adore you.

Maundy Thursday: Love and betrayal (Devotions for Lent from the Gospel of Mark)

The Passover is about to begin. On this night, Jesus and his friends will eat the most important meal of the year and recount together God’s saving acts in the history of their people. They will remember slavery in Egypt, the ten plagues, and how God released their people from bondage. They will remember God’s protection from the angel of death, escaping from the Egyptian army, and God’s provision in the wilderness. They will remember that they are God’s chosen people and that God, who acted so mightily on their behalf in the past, can and will act again. They will remember they are blessed.

As expected, they gather together in a small room and share a feast.

When the feast is done and everyone is full and satisfied, Jesus reaches for a loaf of bread. Who could eat another bite? And if anyone could, why would they eat that? He breaks the bread, saying it is his body. “Take it.”

He takes a cup of wine, maybe even the cup poured out for the prophet Elijah, poured in case he would return, and says, “This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many.”

He tells them that they will all desert him.

He has given everything. They will not return the favor.

They won’t even stay awake and pray with him. They will give in to the after-meal tiredness and fall asleep in the garden.

Of course, they are still thinking he has come to conquer the empire and take the Temple. When Judas arrives with thugs in the garden, one of the disciples rises to defend Jesus. He cuts off someone’s ear as if to say, “Finally! The revolution begins!” When he is silenced by Jesus, he doesn’t have any idea what to do next. Without weapons, what power do any of them have?

They all scatter, just as Jesus has said they would.

Text for the day:

Mark 14:12-72

Things to think about:

When does violence seem like the only option?

Things to do:

Lay down your weapons and pray.

Jesus, lead me still.

give us our daily bread

Jesus went to a certain place to pray, and when he returned, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray the way John taught his disciples.” Jesus proceeded to teach them.

The words of his teaching are famous amongst Christians; we call them “The Lord’s Prayer.”

In the midst of that prayer, however, is something startling and less famous. Jesus teaches the disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Like almost every other phrase in the New Testament, this line is translated from the ancient Greek. However, unlike almost every other phrase in the New Testament, scholars have little idea what this phrase actually means. That’s because the word that is translated “daily” only exists in two places in all of the ancient Greek literature, biblical and otherwise. That word, Greek transliterated “epiousion,” occurs only in The Lord’s Prayer. (It has two occurrences, because it appears in both Matthew’s and Luke’s versions of the prayer.)

So we could say Jesus taught his disciples to pray for “epiousion” bread; or to pray for “what we don’t know that we need.”

It reminds me of the wandering Israelites, who cry out to God for sustenance. God delivers “manna” in the wilderness, which in the Hebrew literally means God delivers “what is it?”

God seems to be in the habit of gifting us with things we don’t even know we need and feeding us with unusual things that defy our naming. God feeds us with “what is this stuff?”

Might we learn to pray, “God, each day give to us the things you see that we need, even though we don’t know what they are”?

“Give to us each day our epiousion bread.” Want more? Click here to read Luke 11:1-13.
To listen to the sermon, click here.

prayer on the mountain

Sometimes I think Peter was a bumbling idiot.  He missed obvious things. He did silly and hurtful things. And he said some really ridiculous things.

Jesus had led Peter, John, and James up a high mountain to pray. When Jesus’ glory is revealed to him, and when Moses and Elijah appear (These two, by the way, have been gone from the scene for hundreds of years), Peter says to Jesus, “It’s good for us to be here; let’s build three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

Hadn’t he been following Jesus on the way? Hadn’t he witnesses Jesus’ care for the sick and the suffering? Hadn’t he watched Jesus confront those in power on behalf of those who really needed help? And maybe more to the point, what did Peter think they were going to eat and drink on top of that lonely, isolated peak without any resources? And where was he going to sleep?

There was a reason Jesus had taken his friends to this mountaintop in the first place; to pray. They went to experience peace and isolation. Jesus chose a place away from his ministry, known to be close to God, to rest, renew, and gain some perspective.

While there, they are visited by Israel’s greatest prophet, the one God chose to lead people from slavery into freedom, and by the presence of God in a cloud!

Now, I like to think that I’m not like Peter at all. I like to think that if this were to happen to me, I would understand what’s happening, react appropriately, and say eloquent, empowering things. I like to think that the experience of meeting Jesus glorified, Elijah, Moses, and the voice of God from a cloud would embolden me and empower my ministry.

But maybe I’m more like Peter than I care to admit. I like my comfort zone. I like to revel in great experiences. When I’m on vacation, my favorite parts are the beginning and the middle; I hate the end.

But God calls us to the places where life and relationship are happening. God calls us to accompany one another, to care for one another. God calls us to enter into the joys and the messes of other people’s lives, bearing a word of grace, a shoulder to cry on, a presence to share the load. The purpose of the mountaintop is for the valley. Want more? Click here to readLuke 9:28-36.