Tag: salvation

Rise Up

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3

Easter Monday Prayer: Risen Christ, you include me in your mystery of passion, death, waiting, and new life. Because I trust YOU, I trust my own deaths too. Allow me this Easter to go further with you and to trust the Power of Resurrection. Amen

Before you read: Watch and listen!

It is Easter Monday: Holy Week has happened; and Spring has sprung. We are perhaps halfway through this BIG Pause, and we’re now fully aware we are making history. We’ve never experienced a global pandemic with a national shutdown before. When it’s over, most of us will look back on this as a live-changing event.

What are you learning so far? What good will come from what we’re going through? To put it another way: When this is over, what are you willing to let back into your life? We have a chance to think about that.

There is a lot of speculation going on about the meaning and purpose of our pain—on the individual and collective level.

This week, I’ll devote the evening musings to the practical process of rising strong in midst of suffering. Learning and growing through hardship isn’t guaranteed; but it’s powerfully possible. Going from strength to strength over the course of our lives mostly depends on the quality of consciousness we bring to the evolving stories of our lives.

And since we’re all in weird times this Easter Week, why not go on an intentional treasure hunt for the next great thing to be uncovered in our hearts? Each evening this week, I’ll bring a different rising strong topic and a new exercise for rising.

Spiritual Practice

This evening our practice is to be mindful of our Easter Monday status of being in-Christ. You are literally filled up to all the fullness of God. I know: You don’t always feel that way, and neither do I.

Listen again to the theme song for this Easter week, performed by our worship musicians at Crossroads. It’s lit up with photos of families who are rising strong.

Read aloud the verses from Ephesians 3 and the starter prayer at the top of this post.

Rest Well knowing you are in good hands,
Katie

Abnormally Holy

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Jesus speaking; John 12

Starter Prayer: Risen Christ, you include me in your mystery of passion, death, waiting, and new life. Because I trust YOU, I trust my own deaths too. Allow me this Easter to go further with you and to trust the Power of Resurrection. Amen

The worship and devotional practices of Holy Week and Good Friday are meant to teach us about the mysterious and holy cycle of suffering, death and resurrection as ultimately demonstrated by Jesus of Nazareth for our salvation. As we read the final chapters of Jesus’s story, and remember his arrest and execution, we are meant to allow his loving mercy to comfort us in our own suffering. This is the purpose of the readings, songs and prayers of a “normal” Holy Week.

But this Holy Week is not “normal.” This Holy Week we are literally living in the drama and themes of Passover, Death and Waiting for Resurrection. Passover: There is a plague in the land, which we pray will pass. Death: But as we pray, “Let this cup pass from us,” people are dying anyway. And Waiting: When will the dying be over and salvation from COVID-19 be realized?

When a seed falls into the ground and dies, there is a kernel of power within the seed. Deep in the darkness of the soil, life is erupting. In time, we will see new life.

I believe these deaths and resurrections naturally occur in the world. And the pattern points to an even larger reality. God is Love, and God works these very same risings in our individual lives and in the events of history until the redemption of the whole world. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that all who believe in him will not die, but will have eternal life.

Spiritual Practice

Pray the Starter Prayer at the top of this post. And in preparation for Good Friday, I urge us to read the Story of the Cross of Jesus from Matthew Chapters 24-27. Pay special attention to the Focus Passage: Matthew 27:45-56 and the Daily Verse for Good Friday: “Truly this man was God’s son!” The full Holy Week Reading Plan is online.

Please join us online at 6:30pm Friday for a live Good Friday meditation led by Pastor Ryan Howell. I know that Ryan will do a beautiful job of simply leading us to the Cross and through the Paschal mystery of Jesus. If you’re able, have three candles and something to eat and drink. We will take communion together.

The Power and the Peace of Christ be yours this Abnormally, Holy Week,
Katie

p.s. Online Easter events for adults and Kids are coming Sunday! Crossroads Kids Live Party is at 9am and Easter with amazing music and message is at 10am.