With thanks

This is the last post for the Lenten blog. Thanks to all who’ve followed along and offered encouragement! Next year, I’ll probably do this again, and might offer the content from this year in print form.

If you’re inclined, I’d love to hear what might be a good to include or change to improve the content. Or simply what you most liked.

In the meantime…

Life is resting in silence with the Lord. We are tasked with drinking deep along the way as we live between the birth and the resurrection.

To sink our roots down into the living water, allowing God’s grace to transform us and sustain us.

So grateful for each life here, each life. God grant us the ability to sense how much he thinks about us, dwells with us, follows and cares for us.

Blessings and a very Happy Easter.

Anne-Marie

 

 

 

Good Friday: remember

Remember.

We remember so many things. The happy and the grating and the sorrowful; both for ourselves and in the bigger frames of our cities and communities and world.

We remember.

So much of the gospel is the people who walked with Jesus, remembering. Unpacking the small details that opened their eyes to his kindly majesty. This God wrapped in the package of a mortal husk, as we are.

But he dignified and blessed that mortal husk, and paid close attention to the suffering in this present age. Healing as he came in contact, listening, tending to every sort of ill.

Seeds, soil, earth.

This greatest of kings works with seeds, soil and earth.

His passion included braziers with coal and a frightened Peter close by.

Thorns, blood.

Hands and feet pierced.

He was pierced for us.

But this, like the story of the seed, is a life story. This, the life-promise God purposes toward us and seals with the gift of himself to accompany us, whether glory or muddy.

Let us wait with him, these days of his suffering.

Let us wait by his cave, in his cave, this holy Saturday.

We take and eat of his supper, we take and eat and let him wash our feet, as embarrassing as that is, that we have dirt all over our feet. Because we have travelled this world.

Let us, then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.    Hebrews 4

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.   Matthew 7

This cross, not an end, but a key. An invitation, Come: All you who thirst. Come: All you who are weary. Come.  We are not being led into a place that is confined, but led out of confinement, out of our cells and locked places, like the seed, shedding its husk, and being invited out of the ground, into fullness of life.

 

all images: AM Heckt

 

Guest Post: Risking Washing Jesus’ Feet

The Last Supper. Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. Judas leaving the side of Jesus to go betray him. The Garden of Gethsemane. These are the headlines of Maundy or Holy Thursday.

But this Holy Thursday I am struck by another holy and beautiful story–a story where Jesus’ feet are the ones washed. This story occurs either right before or during Holy Week, some days before Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread (the number of days before varies depending on which account you read). It is a foreshadowing of what is coming–a pre-burial rite for those who know the rest of the story. In this story, Jesus’ feet are washed by one of the Mary’s in scripture, bathed not in water but with an expensive perfume. There are a confusing number of Mary’s in the Jesus narrative (it must have been a popular name at the time), but the Mary who does this is one who shows up a lot in the story of Jesus. This Mary is Martha and Lazarus’ sister, the one who sat at Jesus’ feet, the one who seems to get, more than most, who Jesus is.

The story goes like this: there is a dinner. The disciples are there. Lazarus and Mary are there. Martha is there (serving, of course!). Of the disciples that are there, Judas is the one who makes the headline, much as he does a few days later at the Last Supper. Interestingly enough, in Mark’s account of what happens, it is right after this dinner that Judas heads out to the chief priests to betray Jesus and begins looking for an opportunity to hand him over. Perhaps it was because of what went down at this dinner? Perhaps Jesus’ fierce protection of Mary and her act is the last straw for Judas? Perhaps he can no longer take Jesus’ responses which don’t always jive with logic and common sense? Perhaps Jesus’ utter disregard for money (it clearly matters to Judas, as we soon see) is what pushes Judas over the edge?

Anyway, in the course of the dinner, Mary pours a whole bottle of expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet, wiping them with her hair. Now, I don’t really have to go into how untoward and scandalous this would be, do I? How utterly inappropriate. The timing. The setting. The actual act.

After this act, the text says, “And the house was filled with the fragrance of perfume.”

But no matter. The disciples don’t  smell or see the beauty. They immediately go pragmatic. In John’s account, it is Judas who verbally attacks Mary, asking what many would acknowledge is a legit question, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages!”

But here comes a Jesus I love. A fierce Jesus who receives Mary’s gift and protects her: “Leave her alone.” How many times have you tried to offer something that wasn’t received? How many times have you wanted or needed backup–someone who understood what was going on and stood in the way of the detractors? Someone who would say, “Leave her alone–Don’t you smell the perfume? Don’t you see the beauty here? The risk? Leave her alone.”

This act of Jesus, this not-only-acceptance of Mary’s gift and risk but his fierce protection of it in the presence of those who don’t understand, who perhaps will never understand, rocks me. I have always wanted to be Mary–someone who doesn’t seem to worry about her sister’s opinion or the opinions of the men who surround Jesus–a woman willing to not do the expected thing, but one willing to receive from Jesus, risk in front of him. One who is secure in her relationship with him, willing to trust and be herself before and with him. But there is a piece of me, the piece that has been wounded by people who didn’t understand what I was bringing or offering, who couldn’t see or smell the beauty, who is afraid to be a Mary–afraid to risk.

“Leave her alone…She has done a beautiful thing for me….”

When we risk washing Jesus’ feet, just as when we risk letting him wash ours, something beautiful happens. There is a fragrance that fills the space.

 Where is it you are being called to risk? Where is it you are being invited to show more of yourself and not care if others will understand or be able to receive what you have to offer? Where is it, in your friendship with Jesus, you feel a tug to live in unexpected ways?

I want to live in the beauty. I want to hear Jesus say, “Leave her alone. She has done a beautiful thing for me.” I think maybe you do, too. That’s what the longing in you says. It is risky, to be sure. And there will be those who won’t understand. But you don’t have to tell Jesus that. He knows better than anyone what it means not to be understood or received. But he didn’t let that stop him, not for anything. He is the One, “who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame” (Heb 12:2b).

This is the One who has your back and will receive what you risk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the cry: Jesus given over

This week… this dark week. These portions of a psalm of David ache with abandonment and grief and sorrow and rage over the evil acts that overtake the innocent.  Jesus himself might have felt these words in the marrow of his bones, surrounded by hate in his last moments; unable to see.

And yet, the song of faith: “He stands at the right hand of the needy one…”

The song of faith takes us through days of evil, when we cannot see the goodness of God in the moment, but sing anyway. David sang them; Jesus sang them too.

Help Me, O Lord My God

A Psalm of David. (portions of Psalm 109)

² For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me,
    speaking against me with lying tongues.
³ They encircle me with words of hate,
    and attack me without cause.
⁴ In return for my love they accuse me,
    but I give myself to prayer.
⁵ So they reward me evil for good,
    and hatred for my love.

***

²² For I am poor and needy,
    and my heart is stricken within me.
²³ I am gone like a shadow at evening;
    I am shaken off like a locust.
²⁴ My knees are weak through fasting;
    my body has become gaunt, with no fat.
²⁵ I am an object of scorn to my accusers;
    when they see me, they wag their heads.

²⁶ Help me, O Lord my God!
    Save me according to your steadfast love!
²⁷ Let them know that this is your hand;
    you, O Lord, have done it!
²⁸ Let them curse, but you will bless!
    They arise and are put to shame, but your servant will be glad!

³⁰ With my mouth I will give great thanks to the Lord;
    I will praise him in the midst of the throng.
³¹ For he stands at the right hand of the needy one,
    to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.

All images: AM Heckt. Park near midnight, Good Friday in Ronda, Light over the valley.

Guest post: Seed of life, planted

Jesus said: ‘unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed, but if it dies, it produces many seeds’.

Sometimes we can identify so closely with that grain of wheat.

The fall.

The sound of metal against gravel as dirt is shoveled on your head, stifling your cries.

The terrible isolation.

All the bright promises are there in the dust with us. Everything that gave us our identity has been stripped away. It’s as though life as we’ve known it is over, and maybe that’s true.

We don’t realize that darkness is the place where transformation occurs, as the outer shell shrivels and new life emerges because God is the ultimate conservationist. He recycles whatever we surrender to Him, not wasting anything, no matter how dead it seems. The old becomes fertilizer for the new.

Christine Caine says: Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you feel like you’ve been buried, but actually, you’ve been planted.

Being planted requires a willingness to be broken and God places great value on brokenness. Without suffering, our prayers are a list of our own wants. Suffering brings us closer to God, and when that happens, we can be changed forever. 

Isa. 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy.  I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. 

God doesn’t live by Himself. He loves roommates and He chooses the ones we’d never expect. He lives with the people who have allowed themselves to be broken, to be the grain of wheat that’s willing to die in order to be formed into something so much better, stronger, more fruitful.

And brokenness has an amazing fragrance. One of the gifts Jesus was given as a baby was myrrh. Psalm 45:8 says His garments are scented with it. The word myrrh literally means distilling in drops, like our tears. In seasons of weeping, myrrh is for healing.

The healing doesn’t give us a makeover, the old but looking a lot better. Healing requires total surrender of our old mindsets. In the same way myrrh is crushed in order to release the perfume, our old ways are crushed in that dark place and transformed into fertilizer that brings new growth in our lives. That’s how people smell the fragrance of Jesus through our brokenness.

Romans 8:18 The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be matched with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Suffering passes, the pain fades, but the glory of God in our lives continues on, enlarging and developing within us, far outstripping the pain that seemed so costly at the time.

And because of that process in our lives, people see Jesus just that bit more clearly than they did before.

It’s all worth it. Never forget that. The isolation is not for nothing. God is doing a new thing, and it springs forth even now in us.

Many thanks today for this post from my dear friend, Bev Murrill. One of the best things about getting yourself out there with your work is the talented people you meet.

Bev Murrill has been a senior church leader for over 30 years and speaks internationally to conferences and churches, as well as mentoring leaders. She blogs on www.bevmurrill.com

Images: Feet with leaves (Chester and AM), and Pasque/Easter flower – AM Heckt. Wheat and seedling – pixabay.

We all, with unveiled faces…

Lent is officially over, but I’m planning to go through Holy Saturday. Thank you to all who’ve been reading along and reposting, and offering encouragement and ideas.

In the meantime, things have heated up in Jerusalem.

Jesus entered on a mule, mild and gentle. And as often happens, the pharisees mistook the nature of strength. Until he got off the donkey and cleared the temple with a whip.

Luther felt a similar rage over the greedy abuses of the church in his time, the fees paid by the sick or the sad or bereaved to try and purchase forgiveness. All that gold.

So often, we surrender ourselves to the judgements or quick fixes or bullying of others, or of our own critical spirits rather than to the kindness of the eternal one.

God, eternal and perfect, and us… well… as we are… a little tough to face.

But God’s look is not ours. We hate the imperfect parts of ourselves. He loves them into beauty, seeing beyond the surface to what was meant or what we were reaching for. Sees the woman behind the prostitute, the gentleman in the tax collector’s clothes.

Inviting us into a more perfect way, but not a perfectionistic way.

The tower of London has a poignant wall (above) with messages from both Protestants and Catholics etched in stone, before they died. Prayers rose in the chapel from those in and out of favor, and a prince died below this window, because someone else wanted to rule.

Power and money and the buying of what God so freely offered. The freedom he planned, starting with the gift of life-seed to Abraham and Sarah. This is the rage that we see in Jerusalem. The blood of God is not to be bartered for gain.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.  from 2 Corinthians 3

God’s light, piercing our darkness. Let us draw near.

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  Hebrew’s 4:16

All images: AM Heckt. Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, Cathedral on Good Friday – Ronda.

 

 

See, your king is coming to you

This entrance to an ancient city in southern Spain, and the whole area, seemed much like the holy land. Shepherds still roam over the fields, leading their sheep. Much as they have for thousands of years.

I wonder if Jesus walked a similar road on his way into Jerusalem?

 

image: Ronda, Spain. AM Heckt

Sparrows and hummingbirds

Consider the birds, they do not sow or reap or store away… 

Do not worry about your life. You are worth more than many sparrows.

Like the flowers in the field, well watered and bathed in light.

We’re given all we need to grow and thrive, and one request:

Wait with me? Jesus asks.

My soul is consumed with sorrow to the point of death. 

In the dark of the garden, feeling the weight of things we do not understand, we sleep.

We fail. But we attend as best we can, sensitive to the quiver in the air, the visit at the tent flap, the one who does not force or command, but asks. Watch with me?

We can be a sparrow that builds her nest in the house of God. A tiny hummingbird fluttering.

Holy Week: Jesus clearing the temple with a whip, Judas, foot washing, evil crawling out into the open. Everything distilled to its purest form.

Fear, doubt, touch, love, abandonment.

Too much to take in.

But we get a glimpse, for a moment.

We are small, wings beating frantically simply to remain airborne, like a hummingbird.

He carries that which we cannot, carries us, and gifts us the glory.

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.

Images: AM Heckt: veg garden, sketch. hummingbird nest: JM Heckt.

 

 

As different as egg and peacock

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But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.     I Corinthians 15

The seed being formed, the ground prepared, enriched, watered, lit and warmed – all contribute to the thing that was so small shedding it’s dry husk. Then exploding upward, unfolding…until it emerges. So different in quality to the seed, it’s like an egg becoming a beautiful bird with ornate feathers, a beak, and wings.

Or a human, seed and egg uniting to form all our specialized systems and all the things we can do not only physically, but with our minds and emotions.

The fruit of a mature tree, compared with the small seed that fell from, say, inside the core of an apple…Hard to imagine the size differential if you could compress the whole of that tree and compare the two.

And then there’s the harvest every year from the tree, from that one small seed, or with lettuce, the generations of seeds and plants from the one. Life, cascading out and up and overflowing in such profusion.

Jesus willingly cast himself before his haters and killers and abusers, knowingly reversing the curse that came with the choices of Adam.

I imagine it’s like the process of a tree going dormant, or a plant withering and dying, but in reverse. Everything pulses with life and green again, reviving. He breaks death. This Jesus who was called ‘God with us’ at his birth, he has ridden into town and stepped off his small colt of a mule and starting writing things in the dust of our lives.

Asking us to cast this one small life like seed, to lay ourselves down and believe that offering everything up brings this reversal of dying, and leads to green and supple growth, from dry and hard.

The growth is truly exponential. Jesus raised so far beyond Jesus in his mortal body.

The seed of forever and of perfection is in us started before we were born. It’s in there, but I guess it’s going to bust open and grow into something immensely more supple and alive than we can ask or imagine.

A stretch, indeed, to think on that.

Growth – to begin to open up our hands and hold things more loosely, trusting that life will come.

Let us sing that song as we walk through Holy Week. The song of the grain of wheat, trusting in the good earth, the good God who waters us from deep within the chambers of his storehouses with life, with all that is needed for true and lasting growth.

All images – pixabay.

 

 

 

 

Who is this?

Even the children came to this parade.

A Roman victory procession would have included chariots and warriors in armor.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem pales in comparison. And the children draw near. The everyday people line his way with their cloaks.

He rode a young colt, which they would call an ass – an everyday animal. I imagine a horse would be rare among average people…like us. Feet were used a lot (hence the foot washing needed) and donkeys.

Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; shout, daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your king comes to you; he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass.  Zechariah 9

We are so often frightened, anxious, vulnerable or threatened. So often, Jesus calls himself the gentle one, the one who is humble in heart.

Even in this, his triumphant entry, Jesus is saying with his choice of a ride:

Do not, please little one, do not be afraid.  

Oh how gentle.

Zion’s Coming King

They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?”   Matthew 21

All images – Pixabay.