Easter

My Lent Plans for 2016

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Here I am, typing this on my laptop in Starbucks and already thinking about Lent. If I’m not mistaken, Lent starts on Ash Wednesday, the day after Fat Tuesday, which occurs during Mardi Gras.

My plan as always is to fast from social media during this time. As much as I’d like to use the extra time to be all productive and stuff, my main goal during this season is to reboot my brain and get my head right again.

Not that I’m in a bad place. I just think that it’s easy to let social media affect how you perceive yourself and others, and stepping away from it all can be a good way to remind yourself that life is more than status updates, Instagram posts, and how many likes and/or comments you get.

I will still be writing these blogs, so fret not. They will still show up on all my social media outlets, as usual.

Ideally, I can spend way less time with my head buried in my phone. I can look up and see blue skies and sunsets and other people (most likely with their heads buried in their phones and tablets).

Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. It’s also what happens when you’re checking your Facebook feed or updating your Twitter account. I doubt very seriously that you’ll get to the end of your life and regret all those hilarious memes you didn’t share or all the clever status updates you didn’t write.

You will regret not spending more actual real time with real people in face-to-face conversations about real-life situations.

You will regret not looking up from your social media to see all that life that’s passing you by.

So all that to say that starting Ash Wednesday, I will be (mostly) off the grid until after Easter Sunday. See you all then.

 

Waiting Expectantly

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Waiting is essential to the spiritual life. But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for. We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus. We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit, and after the ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory. We are always waiting, but it is a waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God’s footsteps.

Waiting for God is an active, alert – yes, joyful – waiting. As we wait we remember him for whom we are waiting, and as we remember him we create a community ready to welcome him when he comes” (Henri Nouwen).

And so we wait.

Not in a passive sort of way, like a junior high girl waiting by the phone for her crush to call or a job-seeker waiting for a call from one of the places to which he’s applied.

We prepare as we wait. We anticipate as we wait. We hope as we wait. And we love God and each other well as we wait.

Waiting never gets any easier, but it’s always worth it. Taking shortcuts almost never is. Just ask Abraham and Sarah.

Waiting in faith and expectancy is a way of saying that God’s timing is better than mine and the gain in the end is better than any immediate gratification I’m giving up in the present.

I’m not saying anything new. In fact, this almost feels like a re-run of sorts.

Whatever you’re waiting for from God is worth whatever time it takes. Trust the heart of your Father who knows best what to give and when to give it. Trust that the best is still yet to come and that  it is still coming.

Just as surely as Advent follows into Christmas, so will faithful waiting follow into joy.

 

 

God with Dirty Fingernails

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I posted this on Facebook a year ago and was still blown away by how powerfully it spoke to me. I hope it speaks to you in the same way.

“As I looked out over the shivering crowd, I suggested that perhaps Mary Magdalene thought the resurrected Christ was a gardener because Jesus still had the dirt from His own tomb under His nails. Of course, the depictions in churches of the risen Christ never show dirt under His nails; they make Him look more like a wingless angel than a gardener. It’s as if He needed to be cleaned up for Easter visitors so He looked more impressive and so no one would be offended by the truth. But then what we all end up with is a perverted idea of what resurrection looks like. My experience, however, is that the God of Easter is a God with dirt under His nails.

Resurrection never feels like being made clean and nice and pious like in those Easter pictures. I would have never agreed to work for God if I had believed God was interested in trying to make me nice or even good. Instead, what I subconsciously knew, even back then, was that God was never about making me spiffy; God was about making me new.

New doesn’t always look perfect. Like the Easter story itself, new is often messy. New looks like recovering alcoholics. New looks like reconciliation between family members who don’t actually deserve it. New looks like every time I manage to admit I was wrong and every time I manage to not mention I was right. New looks like every fresh start and every act of forgiveness and every moment of letting go of what we thought we couldn’t live without and then somehow living without it anyways. New is the thing we never saw coming – never even hoped for – but ends up being what we needed all along.

‘It happens to all of us,’ I concluded that Easter Sunday morning. ‘God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.‘” (Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix)

A Few Weeks Late (But Still Worthwhile)

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I am posting an old homily by John Chrysostom that is traditionally read aloud in many Orthodox churches on Easter Sunday morning. What’s that you say? Easter is over? Yes, it is, but the sentiment and the reality are just as true the other 364 days of the year. So, without further ado:

“If anyone is devout and a lover of God, let them enjoy this beautiful and radiant festival.

If anyone is a grateful servant, let them, rejoicing, enter into the joy of his Lord.

If anyone has wearied themselves in fasting, let them now receive recompense.

If anyone has labored from the first hour, let them today receive the just reward.

If anyone has come at the third hour, with thanksgiving let them feast.

If anyone has arrived at the sixth hour, let them have no misgivings; for they shall suffer no loss.

If anyone has delayed until the ninth hour, let them draw near without hesitation.

If anyone has arrived even at the eleventh hour, let them not fear on account of tardiness.

For the Master is gracious and receives the last even as the first; He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has labored from the first.

He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first; to the one He gives, and to the other He is gracious.

He both honors the work and praises the intention.

Enter all of you, therefore, into the joy of our Lord, and, whether first or last, receive your reward.

O rich and poor, one with another, dance for joy!

O you ascetics and you negligent, celebrate the day!

You that have fasted and you that have disregarded the fast, rejoice today!

The table is rich-laden: feast royally, all of you!

The calf is fatted: let no one go forth hungry!

Let all partake of the feast of faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness.

Let no one lament their poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn their transgressions, for pardon has dawned from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Saviour’s death has set us free.

He that was taken by death has annihilated it!

He descended into Hades and took Hades captive!

He embittered it when it tasted His flesh! And anticipating this, Isaiah exclaimed: ‘Hades was embittered when it encountered Thee in the lower regions.’

It was embittered, for it was abolished!

It was embittered, for it was mocked!

It was embittered, for it was purged!

It was embittered, for it was despoiled!

It was embittered, for it was bound in chains!

It took a body and came upon God!

It took earth and encountered heaven!

It took what it saw, but crumbled before what can not seen!

O death, where is thy sting?

O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!

Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen, and life reigns!

Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!

For Christ, being raised from the dead, has become the first-fruits of them that have slept.

To Him be glory and might unto the ages of ages.

Amen.”

Easter Sunday 2015

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

File Apr 05, 9 15 22 PM

“It is good for us to remember that this stone was rolled away from the entrance, not to permit Christ to come out but to enable the disciples to go in!” (Peter Marshall)

“A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act” (Mahatma Gandhi).

“God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‘I love you'” (Billy Graham).

“But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross” (Bono).

For me, Easter is a bit harder to prepare for than Christmas. You don’t have nearly the commercialism of the season constantly reminding you that the day is coming. Also, Easter isn’t on a fixed day every year like Christmas.

Most of all, Easter isn’t quite the feel-good story that Christmas is. You don’t have the cute little infant being cradled by loving Mary as a doting Joseph watches on. You have the gory spectacle of the cross and the death of an innocent Man to deal with.

But you need both, I think. You can’t have the Greatest Story Ever Told without both the virgin birth and the death and resurrection. If Jesus wasn’t born of a virgin Mary, then He’s not qualified to die for anyone’s sins but His own. If He isn’t raised from the dead, then we are still stuck in our sins and just as hopeless as before.

So I love both seasons. More than that, I love how Advent comes before Christmas and Lent comes before Easter, giving us time to prepare our hearts and minds for what it all means.

This year, Easter means that no life is wasted. It means that every life matters and every single person ever born matters to God. It means that your and my identity doesn’t come from honor rolls or bank accounts or resumes, but from Calvary. At the core, who I am is the Beloved of God, who proved that He thought I was worth dying for on that cross.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, there are only 263 days left until Christmas.

 

 

Easter Saturday

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

tomb_closed

I suppose it was a quiet day for the disciples. Not quiet in the sense of anticipation and hope but more in the sense of resignation and despair. They had seen their Messiah crucified and buried in a tomb.

It was over. All their hopes and dreams for the future went with Jesus into that tomb and the future that presented itself was as bleak as the black sky over Golgotha that afternoon.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a state of grief where there are no more tears to cry, where there’s a quiet calm after the storm. Where it feels like you’ll never feel happiness or laughter ever again. That’s where they were as they stared at the massive stone that a legion of Romans had rolled in front of the tomb where Jesus lay. Even if they wanted to, all twelve of them couldn’t have budged that stone from its place to steal the body of their leader and Lord.

Yes, they had seen Lazarus alive and joking around after being in the grave four days, but this was different. Lazarus had been ill and died in his own bed. Lazarus hadn’t been brutally beaten and whipped within an inch of his life before being forced up the hill to his own crucifixion.

They had seen the finality of the final moments where Jesus commended His Spirit to God in a loud cry. Truly, it was over. There would be no more parables, no more stories, no more miracles, no more crowds.

It’s easy for me, having read the rest of the story, to rush past this day. But for those who were there, there was no rest of the story yet. Just a grey sky and a dark room and a dead Messiah.

Yet early in the morning, just shy of daybreak, everything for these disciples and for the rest of the world was about to change forever.

 

On a Rainy Good Friday

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

158901.hrain2

I drove home in a monsoon. Or it felt like a monsoon to this Middle Tennessean. The picture above is a fairly accurate depiction of what I saw through my own windshield– not much at all– as I motored down the interstate. Twice, a passing car splashed a lot of water on my car and I literally couldn’t see anything for a few seconds that felt a lot longer than a few seconds. I gripped the steering wheel, prayed hard, and kept going.

I think I even passed through a small amount of hail, which I can safely say with almost 98% certainty was a first for me. I’ve never seen so many cars pulled over to the side of the road under overpasses to wait out the deluge. But I trudged onward, slowly and cautiously.

I was nervous, but not panicky. I figured that God was more than able to get me through the rain and it had to let up sooner or later. No rain, literal or figurative, can last forever.

On another Good Friday, there wasn’t a whole lot of sunshine. It was both literally and metaphorically one of the darkest days in the history of humanity. Jesus had breathed His last on the cross and they had taken Him down to be buried in a borrowed tomb.

I can read about it knowing the rest of the story, but for those living it in real time, they had no idea that a resurrection was coming. Those disciples who had fled during Jesus’ arrest had witnessed the crucifixion from afar. Or maybe they hid out and received reports from those who were there, Either way, they had seen their world end.

I’ve been there. I’ve been in places that felt like dead ends and wondered how I would ever get back.

But Easter is about a God who knows the way out of the grave. And though it may be Friday, Sunday’s comin’!

 

Jesus Knows

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

This past Sunday, we celebrated Palm Sunday. On this day, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey while people laid palm branches on the road before Him and hailed Him with hosannas.

Five days later, these same people were calling out for His death.

Jesus knows what it feels like to be deserted in a time of need.

Jesus is with the woman whose husband walked out on her, saying he didn’t love her any more.

Jesus is with the boy whose friend suddenly acts like a stranger when the cool kids are around because he doesn’t want anybody to think he’s friends with a nerd.

Jesus is with that one whose friend who he counted on suddenly disappears from his life and he can’t for the life of him figure out why.

The beautiful part is that Jesus can do more than feel the pain we feel. He can actually do something about it.

That death Jesus faced on the cross was more than the murder of an innocent man and the hands of a mob.

It was God in the flesh laying down His own life for the ones who deserted Him, the ones who mocked Him, the ones who spit in His face, the ones who drove the nails into His wrists and feet. the very ones who killed Him.

Ultimately, it wasn’t sin that killed Jesus. It wasn’t the pain. In the end, He gave His life up willingly, a choice He had made from day one.

That means that no one need ever be alone again. Jesus’ death and resurrection means that one day every wrong will be made right and all the hurts and wounds of the world will be healed.

I love that Jesus never turns down anyone who earnestly seeks Him in faith. You and I didn’t find Jesus, because it wasn’t He who was lost. We were the ones who were lost, and Jesus is the One who found us.

And Jesus still knows.

 

 

Henri Nouwen and Lent in 2015

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“O Lord, this holy season of Lent is passing quickly. I entered into it with fear, but also with great expectations. I hoped for a great breakthrough, a powerful conversion, a real change of heart; I wanted Easter to be a day so full of light that not even a trace of darkness would be left in my soul.

But I know that you do not come to your people with thunder and lightning. Even St. Paul and St. Francis journeyed through much darkness before they could see your light. Let me be thankful for your gentle way. I know you are at work. I know you will not leave me alone. I know you are quickening me for Easter – but in a way fitting to my own history and my own temperament.

I pray that these last three weeks, in which you invite me to enter more fully into the mystery of your passion, will bring me a greater desire to follow you on the way that you create for me and to accept the cross that you give to me. Let me die to the desire to choose my own way and select my own desire. You do not want to make me a hero but a servant who loves you.

Be with me tomorrow and in the days to come, and let me experience your gentle presence. Amen” (Henri Nouwen).

I think that says everything that’s in my heart in this season of Lent leading up to Easter Sunday on April 5, especially the part of dying to choosing my own way and selecting my own desire. That’s me. I have my own dreams and ideas of how my life should play out. God has different dreams and ideas for me. Seeing as how God’s ways are so much higher and better than mine, I would do well to yield to His ways over mine.

Lord, I lay my life at your feet. Make it shine brightly for You and for others to see You, regardless of the cost to me. Amen.

My Social Media Break Update

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

You’re probably aware that I’m taking a break from social media for Lent. I found out today that Easter this year falls on April 5, meaning that I have roughly four more weeks to go. So far so good.

I’d like to tell you that I’ve been super spiritual and devoted all my newly-acquired spare time to prayer and Bible reading. I have managed to read more books and catch up on my Netflix queue. And read more of my Bible.

For me, it’s all about getting away from social media so that it doesn’t run my life. Too much time spent on Facebook and Instagram can feed into my perceived need for approval. It’s easy to feel good when lots of people comment on my posts and conversely, to feel isolated and ignored when they don’t. And I don’t just speak for me. I speak to most of you out there.

So I’m finding out that the wonderful world of social media didn’t fall apart without me. It kept right on going. I also found out that I didn’t go to pieces without my daily Facebook fix. So far, I’ve managed to keep most of my sanity (and hair).

One day, I’ll be really brave and disconnect from all things electronic. Maybe that will be for next Lent– give up television AND social media. Now that’d really be a challenge.

For now, I confess that I’m not as spiritual and disciplined and dedicated as I’d like to be. I also can state that I’ve gone three weeks without social media without falling off any wagons. I call that a win.

Most of all, I’m reminded again that God is faithful, even when I am faith-less. He is faithful to finish that good work He started in me and has even invited me to be a part of the great work He’s doing all around me.

Lent is the best reminder I know that it’s still not about me, no matter what I tell myself. And yes, I needed that reminder yet again.