Through the Night

Dear friends,

How are you?

In some ways, this Holy Week has felt far more in tune with the events of that first Holy Week. I’m finding that our current situation invites us to immerse ourselves even more deeply into Christ’s passion for our salvation.

I put together a worship service that walks through the Great Three Days: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil of Holy Saturday.

Here are portions of that service in written form:

Welcome

I pray that wherever and whenever this worship experience finds you, you will know God’s abiding presence with you. And I pray that as we meditate together on that first Holy Week, we might be encouraged and inspired, comforted and consoled, led by the Holy Spirit to trust that we do not walk this road alone. Jesus has gone before us through the most crushing heartache. He knows our hurts, our sorrows and our frustrations. He is our constant companion, the one through whom we receive grace upon grace, especially now.

Maundy Thursday

When Jesus gathered with his disciples on Maundy Thursday, they were gathered to celebrate the Passover. It was a celebration to remember God’s saving work in their lives. They recalled how God led their ancestors out of slavery in Egypt; how God heard the cries of God’s people and came to their rescue; how God parted the waters and let them cross on dry land; how God spared their lives and led them to freedom; how God went before them to show them the way to the promised land—a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of their own, a land where they could be God’s beloved people—a united voice for justice, people who would proclaim hope, ones who would live in love for their neighbors near and far.

Invitation

Tonight, I invite you to remember God’s saving work in your life. When have you been most aware of God leading you to freedom? Is there a story from the life of your family—your ancestors—that has been handed down through the generations? When has God gone before you to show you the way—led you out of pain and sorrow to the light of love and joy and bold witness to God’s saving power?

Take a moment to reflect on these questions. And then share the stories with those near to you—perhaps there in the same room or perhaps only a phone call away. When you return, I’ll share one of my stories with you.

My Story

I remember crying out to God in the days and weeks following my brother’s death. Sometimes I didn’t speak to God at all. I was too hurt. Too angry. I felt as though God had failed Mike and failed me. In the end, it wasn’t a dramatic rescue, but it was a rescue nonetheless. God led me through the Luther College community and then through the Wartburg Seminary community. When I couldn’t sing, the community sang for me. When I couldn’t pray, the community prayed for me. When I couldn’t believe—couldn’t trust God’s goodness—I knew that I was being carried and held by a community that would believe for me until I could trust again. And out of that experience of God holding me and caring for me through the gift of life in community, I have become a bold witness to the way in which God works through the church. We are not perfect. We don’t have to be. The Holy Spirit calls us, equips us, empowers us to be a united voice for justice, people who proclaim hope, ones who live in love for our neighbors near and far.

The Gospel of John

As Jesus shared that last meal with his disciples, he gave them a new commandment. He said, “…love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Reflection

Jesus embodies the love that he commands. He washes the feet of his disciples, chooses them, sets an example for them to follow into the future. This is what agape love looks like. This is the pattern to live by—getting up from the table, pouring water, washing the feet of those around you, dismantling power and privilege, setting aside all ego and fear, loving not just with words but with a body that kneels in service and in witness to God’s faithfulness.

Jesus sets an example for us—not just in the washing, but in the witness. The gospel writer tells us that Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world. He knew, even, who was to betray him. He could have been bound by fear and pain. He could have been bitter and angry. He could have given up caring. But instead he set an example for us. Jesus embodied love that night by stooping down and becoming a servant to his disciples, washing their feet, so that they might know how to live in the world, how to love the world—with humility, with a willingness to serve, with an understanding that greatness is measured not by wealth or privilege or power, but by love.

Jesus knew that he had come from God and was going to God, and it was that experience of being held in God’s love that compelled him to love wholeheartedly, to kneel down and wash the feet even of the one who would betray him, to choose even him. Because that’s what God does—chooses forgiveness, chooses mercy, chooses grace, chooses us who fail time and time again.

The example Jesus has given us to follow is love that loves to the end.

Jesus chooses you to be love in the world, to love not just with words, but with a body that kneels in service and in witness to God’s faithfulness, to trust God—remembering, and celebrating, God’s saving work in your life.

Good Friday: A Suffering God

All four gospels describe Jesus’ death in slightly different ways. In both Matthew and Mark, Jesus cries from the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I’d like to share with you two brief passages from books that have influenced me when I think about the power behind this question that Jesus cried out in the midst of his own suffering.

A reading from She Who Is by Elizabeth Johnson:

A woman spent endless days and nights on a hospital ward with her tiny, sick daughter, helping the nurses with the other babies when she could. It was a dreadful exposure to the meaningless suffering of the innocent. On those terrible children’s wards, she writes, “I could neither have worshiped nor respected any God who had not Himself cried out, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ Because it was so, because the Creator loved His creation enough to become helpless with it, and suffer in it, totally overwhelmed by the pain of it….I found there was still hope.” The mystery of God is here in solidarity with those who suffer. In the midst of the isolation of suffering, the presence of divine compassion as companion to the pain, transforms suffering—not mitigating its evil, but bringing an inexplicable consolation and comfort.

A reading from Jurgen Moltmann’s The Way of Jesus Christ:

This is the answer to the God-cry of the God-forsaken Christ, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” For a brief moment I forsook you, so that you might become the brother of forsaken human beings. And so that, in fellowship with you, nothing can separate anyone at all from our love. I did not forsake you eternally, but was beside you in your heart.

Easter Vigil

The Easter Vigil recognizes that in between time in which we live so many of our days. Jesus has died. And though we know how the story ends—with an empty tomb, with resurrection, with death defeated and love and life victorious—it hasn’t happened yet. So we wait in the dark. We wait, filled with grief but not without hope. We wait, wondering what will come next. We wait, looking back—remembering God’s faithfulness in the past—so that we might trust that God’s faithfulness will continue into the future. We wait in the dark. We watch for the morning to come. And we tell the stories that make our hearts sing even in the midst of such sorrow and helplessness.

What is your favorite story from the Bible? The one you can tell from your heart?

Invitation

What story will you tell as we wait in the dark together? When that story comes to mind, go ahead and pause and share your story with those near to you—either there at home with you or on the other end of the phone. Share the story that reminds you of God’s faithfulness and fills you with hope.

Blessing

God is faithful. Easter is coming. Suffering and sorrow, death and disease, are never the end of the story.

Wait and watch. Easter is coming. The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

As we wait together, I offer you a song I wrote last year and sang with Doug for Good Friday worship in 2019. I pray it will encourage you as we wait together for resurrection. You’ll recognize the end, which incorporates the beloved hymn What Wondrous Love Is This. Please sing with me and Doug. We sing together as we watch and wait for God to surprise us with life.

In the Wake of Sorrow

In the wake of sorrow, storied silence stretches,

begging for the answers that will bring a steady peace.

There’s no map to follow in this deafening desert.

There’s just weary wandering, vultures circling overhead.

Still, the sun keeps rising, and the moon keeps dancing,

and the world keeps spinning light from wool of darkest night.

From the silence, singing springs forth from the suffering,

through the tears, a tune of trust, a melody of joy.

In the desert, swelling wave of deep contentment,

tide of love and longing–peace this pain cannot destroy.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul!