Welcome to the opening of week 7 in preparation for Good Friday.
These meditations have been an opportunity for us to stay connected to the Lenten season
all week long,
And to think about Lent in the context of our everyday lives.
This is the final week of our Lent series,
And today we focus on Good Friday.
My name is Jess,
And I have engaged Lent in everything from giving up physical things
like sugar or alcohol,
To giving up character issues like sarcasm and negativity,
To some
years not engaging Lent at all.
So in these times,
We have taken the focus off of giving something up for religious duty,
But have tried to engage the season as a time for spiritual growth and renewal.
To start,
Let's take five big breaths together.
The science behind mindfulness practices is fascinating.
We are training our brain to be better with stress,
Better to react to stress,
And better
to recover from stress as we experience it.
It sharpens our focus,
And over time makes us more compassionate.
It has positive impact on relationships and mental health.
Mindfulness is good for slowing down whenever you feel the need,
And especially in preparing
for prayer.
Really,
The potential is to be more mindful in every aspect of our lives.
So feel yourself breathe for just one moment before we begin talking about Good Friday,
And try to be mindful to feel your body as you breathe.
I hope that was calming for your body.
If your mind went to other places just now,
Or happens throughout this time,
That's okay.
It's natural.
And you're still here,
So let's move on.
In our culture,
We often prefer to not dwell on the negative.
In the context of this season,
It may be easier to jump from Palm Sunday,
The celebration
of Jesus entering Jerusalem,
To Easter,
The resurrection.
However,
The history of Christian spirituality has taught us that it is right to stop,
Breathe,
And sit with the death of Christ before moving to resurrection.
So if you're able,
Extend your arms out and turn your palms up in a posture of receiving.
And let's take a moment to reflect on the scripture,
Isaiah 53,
From the Hebrew Scriptures.
It is a text commonly used to understand the death of Jesus and the magnitude of that act
on the world.
As I read it,
What does it evoke in you?
Who has believed our message,
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
Like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
Nothing in his appearance that we
should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
A man of suffering familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces,
He was despised and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering,
Yet we considered him punished by God,
Stricken
by him and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities.
His punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
And by his wounds we are healed.
We all like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to our own way,
And the Lord
laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
Yet he did not open his mouth.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before his shears is silent,
So
he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away,
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living.
For the transgressions of my people he was punished,
And he was assigned a grave with
the wicked and with the rich in his death,
Though he had done no violence nor was any
deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and to cause him to suffer.
In Jesus' Lenten journey,
He released his cares to the Creator,
He released his friends
to the Holy Spirit,
And ultimately his life to God's will.
In this Lenten season we focus on the scars on Jesus' hands.
God we place into those hands our very lives.
God we spend just a moment to sit with the sacrifice of Jesus,
And we resonate with moments
where hope seems gone.
God we receive the sacrifice of Christ and all that he offers us as liberation to the
world and renewal of our hearts.
The great spiritual writers in the Christian tradition often maintained that prayer's role
is to change us on the inside as preparation for active lives lived in the world.
Let's take one minute to decide what we might do differently as we honor,
Respect,
And remember
the death of Christ.
Spend one final moment of silence before the sacrifice to Christ in a posture of commitment.
Amen.
And we welcome you for one more guided prayer as we celebrate Easter.
