Lent Photo Challenge - Album

 

The photo challenge is now complete, we hope you enjoyed the thoughts and meditations throughout Lent. 

All the photos are in a Google album for you to look through. 
Just follow this link

Lent Photo Album

Day 47 – Found

 

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”  When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”  Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20: 11-18)

Something happened in the night. Long before the first light of day, before anyone was around to witness it, before any human hand or faith could claim any involvement or revelation – God acted in the dark. Mary finds it first. The tomb is empty, the body gone.  She is grief-stricken and bewildered. So it is that the first experience of resurrection is of loss and emptiness – but there is no other way. We will not come to it by any familiar ways of human understanding. Not for the first time we encounter non-sense. Faith comes to existence where it is needed most – in the very heart of our incomprehension and helplessness. The risen Jesus is not to be recognised by human choice or will. It is for him to reveal himself and release us into freedom. Faith is a gift. He is present even without our recognition. He has found us and he waits for us.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

 

Prayer

You, Lord, are risen! You are risen indeed! And with your rising comes our reawakening, our release, our freedom for all time. Thank you, Lord, for this journey; for the moments of revelation, of sharing, of understanding and of joyful incomprehension at the wonder of your love. May your people face the day ahead as Easter people, sharing the hope of new life and possibility with all we meet.

Day 46 – Release

The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment. (Luke 23: 55-56)

 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all… in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey. (1Peter 3: 18-20)

 What are we to do with this day? We do the same as the first disciples. We do nothing. That is the whole point. A body is lying dead in a tomb. It is the end. There is nothing we can do here. But this is Jesus in the tomb. God cannot die so whose body do you see there? Whose death is he dying?  To seek Jesus on this day, we must contemplate our own end – see our own body lying there beyond breath, lifeless. That is where we meet him. Medieval imagination loved to picture Jesus descending to the world of the dead. He arrives at the gates of the underworld. Satan, whose kingdom this is, comes out to receive what he assumes to be the routine delivery of another human body due to him, for the penalty for sin is death. But he finds, to his utter horror, that he has received the sinless Lord of Glory into his domain. At a stroke, his kingdom is laid waste, evil is vanquished and death itself is defeated.

 Prayer

Lord Jesus, take me by the hand. Take me with you. Release me and raise me up with you.

Day 45 – Torn

Mischievious Meabh (JH)

From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “This man is calling for Elijah.” At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink… Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last… Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” Many women were also there, looking on from a distance. (Matthew 27: 45-48, 50, 54-55).

 

That cry of Jesus is ours. He is crying the cry of the world. “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” the old spiritual asks. Yes, we were – because Jesus was there, in our humanity, in our sin, in the terrible dislocation of it all. God is calling to God from the farthest reaches of a God-lost world. To make that cry takes him to his very last breath. That cry means there is nowhere where God is not. Now, like the women, we must stand and watch and wait. It is out of our hands. It is out of the hands of Jesus, too. It is abandoned into the hands of God.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

 For Reflection

Imagine yourself standing at the foot of the cross of Jesus. Is there anything you want to say or ask?

 Remember in Prayer

Those separated from loved ones this past year, through illness, death or distance; those who feel distant from God at this time; those who cry out for comfort because of loneliness, pain, anxiety.

Day 44 – Servant

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God,  got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet… He came to Simon Peter who said to him…“You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”… After he had washed their feet…he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?... if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet…. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.  If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. (John 13: 1-6, 8-9, 12, 14, 16-17)

 

“Do you know what I have done for you?” If you take off the outer covering, whatever has been concealed is now revealed: the secret is laid bare. Divine love is humble. It is a way of life in which all is laid down for the love and service of the other. There is no competition, no pecking order or hierarchy. Jesus is giving us a glimpse of heaven. If we want to see Jesus we must look down, not up. He is there kneeling at our feet, washing them. This is a washing we cannot do for ourselves. We must surrender to being ‘done to’; grace must embarrass us. All is prepared for us. This is the only love on offer and it is always found beneath our dignity; beneath our feet, unashamed in the mess and dirt. This is to be our way of life too. It is the way of all blessing.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

 For Reflection

Imagine Jesus asking you: “Do you understand what I have done for you?” What is your response?

 Remember in Prayer

Those who serve others in our community – in hospitals, clinics, shops and other service industries which have put others first during the pandemic.