Archives For liturgy

Failing at Lent

Chris —  April 26, 2011

It’s Resurrection Season, so this will be my last post about Lent for about a year.  However, I would be remiss to not recount two things I learned from the season.

1.  We give things up for Lent because it leads us to Easter.  Rather than indulging in what me missed during our fast, we seek to find this small part of our life resurrected.  We give up what controls us through Lent so we can be free of it come Easter.

2.  I failed at Lent, in a deep fundamental way.  Posting on this site, Facebook and elsewhere what I had given up is a direct contradiction of Christ’s words on fasting.  This cheapened my fast and misled others.  My apologies.

In Church, Life , , ,
permalink

The Point of Resurrection

Chris —  April 25, 2011

“The message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you’re now invited to belong to it.”

“The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it…). They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.”

— N.T. Wright (Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church)

 

In Church, God, Life , , , , ,
permalink

Only the Darkest Will Do on Holy Saturday

Chris —  April 23, 2011

I know of nothing darker in scripture, and nothing better to ruminate on the day after our Lord’s death.  Please take a moment to read it all.

LORD, you are the God who saves me;
day and night I cry out to you.
May my prayer come before you;
turn your ear to my cry.

I am overwhelmed with troubles
and my life draws near to death.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
I am like one without strength.
I am set apart with the dead,
like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
who are cut off from your care.

You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.
Your wrath lies heavily on me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.
You have taken from me my closest friends
and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
my eyes are dim with grief.

I call to you, LORD, every day;
I spread out my hands to you.
Do you show your wonders to the dead?
Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
Is your love declared in the grave,
your faithfulness in Destruction?
Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

But I cry to you for help, LORD;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
Why, LORD, do you reject me
and hide your face from me?

From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
Your wrath has swept over me;
your terrors have destroyed me.
All day long they surround me like a flood;
they have completely engulfed me.
You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
darkness is my closest friend.

In Church, God, Life , , , , ,
permalink

Finishing Lent Strong

Chris —  April 18, 2011

With Palm Sunday already come and gone, we’re on the home stretch.  This has been a very long Lenten season.

Personally (and maybe here, too) I’ll spend the next week going through the gospels reading the texts about Jesus’ last week.  For those of you still on Twitter, you’ll appreciate following @passionweek.  For those of you with smart phones, I suggest using the Explore Faith app. Based on Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours, it gives liturgical prayers to pray throughout the day.

Lent has taught me how how I make inconsequential things the center of my life.  I’ve realized how bad I need resurrection.  The there’s the fact that by attempting Lent, I’ve realized how wrongly I’ve approached it.

My goal now is to finish Lent strong.  Dive further into the prayers.  Stay true to the pledges of abstinence.  Meditate on my role in Triumphal Entry, Jesus washing my feet, how I betrayed him.  How my actions led to his death.

We need this season, because without it, we’d be too busy distracting ourselves from think about these things.  But to truly embrace Jesus as our Savior, we must recognize ourself as his murderer.

As depressing as it might sound, let’s finish Lent strong.  Because resurrection is coming.

In Church, Life , , , , , ,
permalink

Lent Update

Chris —  March 21, 2011

The practices of Lent are to give some things up and take up others.  Whether you give up something like sweets that you don’t need anyway, or something that is really meaningful, this is really difficult.

A friend of mine keeps talking about how difficult this season of Lent has been for him, because it makes him aware of how far he is from who he wants to be.  Maybe that’s the point.  Perhaps the first and most important work of Lent is that it forces us to name our weaknesses, distractions and shortcomings.

Maybe it’s less about giving stuff up, and more about realizing how much you need to give stuff up.

In Church, Life , , ,
permalink