Tick Tock from the Cobalt Season

Unholy Week – Growing Jesus

My good friend CJ stopped by this afternoon with a gift for the Easter Celebration:

My very own Jesus I can grow!

It supposedly can grow to 600% it size! Unfortunately, reading the directions on the back let us know that it could take up to 10 days to reach its full size.

We’ll keep you updated on our Growing Jesus (“because he is awesome”)

Holy Week: Saturday – Silence

The only thing heard on that Saturday… was silence.

The following excerpt is taken from Pete Rollins thought provoking book, How (Not) to Speak of God.

For the contemporary Christian it is all but impossible to reflect upon the crucifixion without simultaneously bringing to mind the resurrection. While separate temporal events, they are so irrevocably intertwined in our minds that to consider one without the other, if even possible, would seem to be tantamount to falling foul of a fundamental trespass against the radical singularity if the (two) event(s). In short, to consider the crucifixion in isolation from the resurrection would amount to fracturing the radical unity of Easter narrative: for the crucifixion without resurrection would seem to signal the death of faith. Consequently the Easter story, if it is to be understood at all, is to be understood as an irreducibly complex singularity – to tear one part away from the whole would be to effectively destroy both the parts and the whole.

And yet such a seemingly religious approach may actually veil a dark, irreligious heart. If we consider the 2004 film the Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson, we can recall that it was criticized by some for its minimal reference to the resurrection. However, let us imagine for a moment that, far from having a great emphasis upon the resurrection, the film had ignored it entirely. Then let us consider the possibility that, rather than being something deeply inappropriate, this silence could have been the only truly appropriate end for a film exploring the nature of the cross. In contrast to those who would say that its minimal reference to Christ’s return was far too small, perhaps the opposite is true: namely, that for today’s audience it was far too much.

To imagine that the horror of the cross is exhausted in the physical pain or profound injustice that it symbolizes is to misunderstand the true horror of this symbol. While the image of suffering is truly harrowing, it is not the only or even the central horror of this central event. Such reflections can still offer the believer a safe, cathartic horror that is wrapped in the understanding that everything works out well in the end. In contrast to this, the true horror of the cross allows no such shelter, for if considered in itself, it signals the seeming abandonment of God by God and the possible victory of an all-embracing nihilism. Ironically, if the Passion had delved deeper into the heart of the cross, it may well have strategically denied the resurrection entirely, ending with a closed tomb, thereby forcing the viewer to think about their response to Christ amidst his absence and in the seeming face of his abandonment by God.

Without the closure of a resurrection, we would be presented with the unnerving question as to whether our love of Christ is really a love of ourselves, for it is at the foot of the cross that one may truly consider embracing Christianity without the comfort of thinking that such a giving of one’s life is also the means of gaining it back (if one gives in order to receive, one does not really give at all but rather engages in an economic exchange). This provides the means of testing whether our faith is a gift by which we offer ourselves freely rather than an economy by which we negotiate a return.

So then, far from considering cross and resurrection as two sides of the same coin, there are times when we must be courageous enough to close our eyes and imagine the unimaginable end of God. For it is here, in this space, that the truly radical decision can be made. Faith, although not born at the crucifixion, is put on trial there.

So then, what if the only way for us to truly contemplate the horror of the cross requires that we banish all thoughts of the resurrection from our mind? In other words, what if the only way for us to understand this seminal moment involves placing ourselves in the position of the original disciples, psychologically inhabiting that rarely mentioned Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday?

Holy Week: Good Friday – Death Dies

Palm Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Maundy Thursday

Good Friday’s Reading: Mark 15

When Jesus died on Friday, the world shook. The sun stopped. Creation stood still. Everyone Jesus loved waited in anxious bewilderment – only failed Messiahs hung on crosses. Even Jesus wondered if God had given up. Love died on that imperial cross. But then something beautiful happened that we shouldn’t overlook: the veil of the temple was ripped in half. Scholars say that this curtain was enormous, bigger than a basketball court and as thick as your hand. It took more than three hundred priests to move it. And when Christ died, this curtain ripped open. We are left with the unmistakable image that God tore open the temple to set all the sacred things free. And this was something Jesus did his whole life. He offered healing and forgiveness for free, and outside the curtain. The Holy of Holies could not contain God. “The wildest being in existence” would not be domesticated. The cross busted God out of the temple and religion, and brings God out into the streets and outside the city into the wild, where Jesus was executed.

–

They ridiculed and mocked Jesus with an imperial inauguration and beat him to a pulp. Over this Pilate and Herod could agree; amazing how a common enemy can unite former adversaries. “That day Herod and Pilate became friends – before this they had been enemies” (Luke 23:12). So they united as friends to kill the one who supposedly was inciting the people to rebellion, the ultimate enemy of the state, the one who was being lauded as the King of Kings. But Jesus didn’t flinch before the empire’s sword.

Death would soon die.

(Excerpt from Jesus For President)

Holy Week: Maunday Thursday – The Pivot of Hope

A Maundy Thursday Prayer by Walter Brueggemann

The Pivot of Hope

This day of dread and betrayal and denial

causes a pause in out busyness.

Who would have thought that you would take

this eighth so of Jesse

to become the pivot of hope in our ancient memory?

Who would have thought that you would take

this uncredentialed

Galilean rabbi

to become the pivot of newness in the world?

Who would have thought that you –

God of gods and Lord of lords –

would fasten on such small, innocuous agents

whom the world scorns

to turn creation toward you newness?

As we are dazzled,

give us the freedom to resituate our lives in modest,

uncredentialed , vulnerable places.

We ask for freedom and courage to move out from our nicely

arranged patterns of security

into dangerous places of newness where we fear to go.

Cross us by the cross, that we may be Easter marked. Amen.

 

 

Picture by Sterling Severns

Holy Week: Maundy Thursday – The Last Supper

Palm Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…

Maundy Thursday – Read: Mark 14:12-72

a liturgy for maundy thursday

where we walk, we walk in the crap left by others, by ourselves, the mess of human lives, the comings and goings of a wasteful, corrupt and selfish world, we wallow in the dirt and the hurt, oblivious to the stink and the stains that we carry with us. God stripped off all finery, stepped in our crap, knelt in it, touched it, held our ugliest bits in the very hands that made us and washed them clean.

hands which formed matter, pulse which set the rhythm of the planets, breath which stirred life into being, mind which dreamt the diversity of the species, eyes which bore deep into the heart of humanity, heart which yearns for us to choose peace, feet that walk each step with us, mouth which chides and comforts, arms which embrace the hurting, strength which sustains the weak, life which was given up for love, creator who scrapes the shit off my feet, God who serves.

wash me clean

where I judge others
where I dismiss others
where I abuse others
where I ignore others
where I ridicule others
where I use others

wash me clean

where I elevate myself
where I think only of myself
where I want only for myself
where I gather to myself
where I hold to myself
where I value only myself

wash me clean

where I seek for power
where I seek for control
where I seek for praise
where I seek for status
where I seek for fame
where I seek for wealth

wash me clean

we begin this story of service and servant-hood by washing the feet of each other; we are a community of service, we serve each other, we serve the people we meet on the road, we serve the town in which we live, we serve the servant God, who as the God who became flesh and blood and lived amongst us chose to get right down and dirty in the shit and stink of human life to wash the feet of those he lived with. so we wash each others feet.

the challenge for us is that instead of pointing to the rubbish others have accumulated from a place of “holier than thou” judgment, calling them to lift themselves out of the mire, we like Jesus bend and kneel amongst the dirt and the hurt, we get right amongst it, see it up close, feel it, smell it, risk its contamination… and wash the feet of those we serve.

in that moment at the table Jesus was host and servant, head of the table and willing slave, honoured guest and lowest member of staff, holy and humble one. stripping himself of all status and authority he calls us to a humility that flies in the face of modern culture and human logic, to a holiness that follows his pattern… to love in the name of the servant God.

This Liturgy was adapted from its original that can be found here.

Holy Week: More than Peeps!

Mark Van Steenwyk has a great post called the Scandal of Easter at Jesus Manifesto that I think resonates with many of us who grew up as “low church evangelicals.” Plus, don’t tell my wife, I’m in total agreement that Peeps are nasty!

Easter is coming. On Sunday, we remember the day that our Lord wrested free from the confines of the grave. It is the day when the final Enemy, death began its own march to the grave.

Holy Week is an odd time of year. My family didn’t celebrate Holy Week. To me, it was simply a day of pastel marshmallow bunnies and birds (I think Peeps taste nasty) , colored hard-boiled eggs, and jelly beans. Nothing more. Pretty lame as far as holidays go. The only one in my family who really liked Easter was my sister Chantel, but only because she loved coloring the eggs so much.

As I got older, I began to notice peculiar things about the season leading up to Easter. I noticed that on some Wednesday about a month before Easter, people got smudges of ash placed upon their foreheads. Vaguely, I knew that the ash thing had something to do with Easter. And I think I knew that Easter had to do with the day that Jesus went up into heaven or something. Read the rest

Holy Week: Wednesday – Jesus Anointed

You are invited to join me this Holy Week to follow Mark’s day by day account of Jesus’ final days. If you missed the previous days, you can check them out here: Palm Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.

Wednesday – Read: Mark 14:1-11

The Chief Priests wanted him dead, Judas wanted to exploit him and the unnamed woman couldn’t contain herself.

…the contrast of reactions as Jesus goes to the cross invites Mark’s readers to ponder their own positions, feeling and attitudes. ‘Were you there’, asks the old song, ‘when they crucified my Lord?’ Yes, but the more important question is, What was going on inside you? Were you part of those who wanted to look the other way, because some people were so exuberant in their devotion? Were you, like Judas, hoping that, if Jesus was determined to die anyway, you at least might make something out of it? Were you glad to be rid of such a trouble-maker? Or were you ready to give everything you had to honor this strange man, this unexpected Messiah, this paradoxical Passover-maker?

Holy Week: Tuesday – Paying Taxes

Read: Mark 11:20-13:37

The longest part of the narrative during Holy Week takes place on Tuesday, spanning three chapters.

About two thirds of Tuesday consists of conflict with the temple authorities and their associates. The remaining third (chap. 13) warns of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and speaks of the coming of the Son of Man, all in the near future.

One of the conflicts with the authorities came when…

…two unlikely groups conspired to trap him – one at odds with the Roman occupation (Pharisees) and one that represented it (Herodians). It was quite a broad net to cast over Jesus. But he shot back a beautiful riddle. First, when they asked him whether it was right to pay the imperial tax. Jesus asked for one of their coins. (Funny that he didn’t happen to have one on him.) Then he asked, “Whose image is this?” And when they identified it as Caesar’s, he said, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Some folks use this verse to say Jesus bowed to Caesar. But we think it was just the opposite. First, it was quite radical to speak of God and Caesar as two separate entities. Jesus then left it to the hearers to decide what was God’s and what was Caesar’s, though Jesus seemed to subtly point it out. Caesar could brand with his image coins, crowns, and robes, which moths would eat and rust would destroy. But life and creation have God’s stamp on them. Caesar could have his coins, but life is God’s. Caesar had no right to take what is God’s. We are also reminded that just as Caesar stamped his image on coins. God’s image is stamped on human beings. Even Caesar had God’s stamp. God made Caesar, and Caesar was not God. But the hearer was left to ponder the riddle of what was God’s and what was Caesar’s. No wonder Jesus often had to say, “Do you have ears to hear?” (Claiborne and Haw, Jesus for President)

Do we have ears to hear to hear this message today?

Holy Week: Monday – In Between the Fig Trees

Read: Mark 11:12-26

With the help of Tom Wright, we see that…

By itself, the Temple incident is ambiguous. Many people have thought that Jesus was simply protesting against commercialization. On this view, he only intended to clean up the Temple – to stop all this non-religious activity, and leave it as a place for pure prayer and worship. (That’s a suspiciously modern attitude; keeping religion and economic life strictly separate has had fairly devastating consequences, not least in the Two-Thirds World.) But Mark makes it clear, by the placing of the Temple incident within the two halves of the fig tree story, that he sees Jesus’ actions as… a dramatic acted parable of judgment. This was Jesus’ way of announcing God’s condemnation of the Temple itself and all that it had become in the national life of Israel.

The key comes in the biblical quotations that sum up Jesus’ charge against the Temple. Harking back to the old prophetic books of Isaiah and Jeremiah, Jesus is reminding his hearers that the Temple had always been an ambiguous thing. Right from the time it was built and dedicated by Solomon, it was clear that it could never in fact be the full and final dwelling-place of the true God (1 Kings 8:27). although God had promised to bless Israel through the Temple, if Israel began to take it for granted, to use the Temple and the promises attached to it as an excuse for immoral and unjust behavior, then the Temple itself could and would be judged. That’s what the early chapters of Jeremiah are all about, including the quotation that comes here: God’s house has become a brigand’s cave.

In what sense was it a brigand’s cave? Not in the sense that people were using it to make money on the side. The word ‘brigand’, in Jesus’ day, wasn’t a word for ‘thief’ or ‘robber’ in the ordinary sense, but for the revolutionaries, those we today would call the ultra-orthodox, plotting and ready to use violence to bring about their nationalist dreams.

Maybe the question to consider today is, What tables would Jesus turn over today? And in what ways have our nationalistic dreams interfered with the Dreams of God?