Tag: #Holy

HE IS RISEN! ALLELUIA!

I can’t recall a weekend in recent memory when I have shed more tears or felt more overwhelmed.  This Easter weekend I have watched parking lots fill with people who can’t afford to feed their families.  I have watched western nations burying bodies in mass graves.  In these times of sadness, and untold sorrows, I feel keenly how much miss my church…my church family.

Perhaps your heart, like mine so desperately needs the joy this Easter morning brings with it, the celebration of our risen Lord, the celebration of his victory over death, at a time when it feels as if we are surrounded by it.

To steal a phrase from our beloved Archdeacon Matthewman at Church of the Ascension, “the shadow of Christ is over all of us today, even those who don’t know it yet”.  I pray that, much like his disciples did that Easter Sunday morning 2,000 years ago, we are all able to fully experience the wonder, and the joy and the miracle of His resurrection.  Christ is risen, Alleluia!!

God bless,

Meredith

 

 

BECOMING SIN

I’ve spent the last couple of days reading the gospels leading up to Maundy Thursday, reading about that final night Jesus spent with his disciples.  It’s painful to read about the struggle the Son of God went through on that final night.  We all have free will, it is up to us to choose how we behave in any given situation (even if sometimes, like children, we blame our behavior another person).  But sometimes we forget that Jesus had a choice to make too.  On that final night, in the garden of Gethsemane he prayed and pleaded with his Heavenly Father “that if possible the hour might pass from him, ‘Abba, Father’, he said, ‘everything is possible for your.  Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.’  Mark 14:36

Jesus was the incarnation of God, the embodiment of our Heavenly Father in human form, and he had very real, very human feelings.  I can imagine on that night the pain he was feeling in his heart knowing that he was going to have to leave his beloved friends.  The fear and trepidation he must have felt knowing the cruelty, and suffering that was to come both on the cross, and before.  But I think sometimes we forget the biggest burden that he would carry for us.  “He became sin, who knew no sin.” 2 Corinthians 5:21.  And even still, despite all the prophecies, despite everything leading up to this moment, He had to choose.

There have been many times that I have tried to get my head around what was so special about the death of Jesus that we continue to honor and worship him thousands of years later.  He certainly wasn’t the first person or last person to die cruelly for his or her beliefs.  So then why?  Why did an entire religion rise up around this man?  Why was his death special?  I’ve only recently come to understand that a large part of it isn’t just the resurrection story.  There’s something more here…Because he BECAME sin.  Jesus was the Son of God, part of the Trinity.  He was part of the brightest, more pure, most loving force in the universe and he gave all of that up for us, and went down into the heart of darkness.  The weight of my own guilt can be crushing sometimes. But Jesus, all at once, He became every dark deed everyone of us has done, or will ever do.  He became murder, corruption, filth, greed, lust, lies…He allowed everything that was pure and beautiful about himself to be stripped away for our sake.  He allowed himself to be separated from his Heavenly Father and given over to evil for our sake.  I wonder if when Jesus was praying in the garden if it wasn’t the cross he was asking to be saved from, but the suffering, the agony of not feeling, of being in the presence, the peace, the love of God?

So as we walk these final few days toward the joy of Easter morning, I want to keep my mind on the gift that was given to each and every one of us upon that cross.  Freedom.  No more is our path to God blocked, but the blood of the lamb has paved the way for each and every one of us to experience the peace, the love, the presence of the One, True and Ever Living God.  Praise be to God.

In Jesus’ name,

Meredith

BECAUSE OF YOUR GREAT MERCY.

The last few months I have been at times enjoying, and at other times slogging, my way through the prophets of the Old Testament.  Today’s reading hit home with something I have been thinking about, and hearing a lot about over the last few weeks; Prayer.  Some people pray out loud, and they are really good at it.  I’m more of a pray in my head and heart kinda girl. I find I’m more able to really express what I’m feeling and thinking that way.  My prayers are often as varied as my moods.  They range from petitions about my family, or work to pleas for help, and relief from feelings of unworthiness, or sadness.

Some people, maybe you are one of them, might question the point of prayer.  I would say that, in the grand scheme of things, I can’t, off the top of my head, think of a prayer that I have prayed that God hasn’t answered.  Sometimes those answers come almost immediately, sometimes they take weeks, months and even, in some cases, years.  I’ve had people challenge me about this.  How do I know that God is answering my prayer, and it’s not just a coincidence?  When you pray a prayer, and months later you get an email that almost word for word responds to that prayer…I’d have to say that comes from God.

But, having an active prayer life doesn’t mean that you always get what you want.  Early on in my prayer life I went to God with demands, and ultimatums;  “If you want me to believe in you”…kinds of things.  But as my relationship with my heavenly Father has grown, as I see His hand in my life more clearly, and on a daily basis; I am more easily able to give up my need for control.  To trust that God has a plan for me, and to pray that he puts desires in my heart that are in line with his purpose for my life.

We have all been given a precious gift in the midst of the covid-19 crisis…time.  This is not just time we can use to reconnect with our families, but also time we can use to reconnect with our God, to spend time in his presence, to make Him a part of our daily lives.

And this brings me to the verse in the ninth chapter of Daniel that resonated with me this morning.

“We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.”

I will never be “good enough” to deserve to have God answer my prayer.  My answered prayers are because God is merciful, and He loves me… and He calls me His child.

This week is holy week; the week during which the Son of God, Jesus walked toward his ultimate purpose, death on a cross for all of us.  Prayer was an intricate part of Jesus’ life and if you have read, or read the gospels you will see that he often went off on his own to pray.  If prayer is something new to you and you are unsure of how to start then I offer you the prayer that Jesus gave his disciples when they asked him how to pray.

OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE THY NAME.

THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD.

AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES, AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US.

AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM, THE POWER AND THE GLORY

FOREVER AND EVER.

AMEN.

Everything you ever need to say to God is found in this prayer.

God bless,

Meredith