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.

Day 43 – Cross

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.  He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.  For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? (Mark 8: 31-36)

 (Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

This is an uncompromising image of faith. What life-plans, hopes and ambitions make any sense in this moment? To take up our cross is to surrender all attempts to use life, religion and God for our own ends and needs – but the instinct to make such attempts runs very deep. It may look admirably devout and spiritual, but our peril is that we are engaging in activities that are powerless to save. We cannot save ourselves. To take up our cross is to set our mind on ‘divine things’, says Jesus. This all hinges on God and what he is about. All our hope is found here, for the cross is for ever the sign of a God who loves, saves, delivers and raises life out of the darkness of what is dead and lost. Those who lose their life here will find it.

 

For Reflection

What does ‘taking up your cross’ mean for you?

 

Prayer

Nothing in my hand I bring.

Simply to your cross I cling.

Rock of Ages – Augustus Toplady 1725

 

Day 42 – Outsider

Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death,  but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward  and said, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.’” The high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?” But Jesus was silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has blasphemed! Why do we still need witnesses? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict?” They answered, “He deserves death.” (Matthew 26: 59-66)

 

The death of Jesus was the work of devout, God-focused people. When the stakes are high, and deep securities are threatened, religious people may not fight fairer than anyone else. There is a dark side to believing as to everything else – perhaps more so since the ‘faithful’ presume to be acting with divine sanction. A faith with a cross at its centre is well aware that it is part of this world’s deadly capacity for self-delusion and evil. So how did this story become the ‘good news’? Here it is: the cross of Jesus reveals God’s saving love for the world. What happens when a religious sacrificial system based on the management of sin, guilt and debt, receives a perfect victim who makes a free gift of their life for what they do not owe? The whole system collapses. It is rendered redundant, no longer the basis of our acceptance or forgiveness.  If divine love meets us in the gift of Jesus on the cross, there is nowhere that is outside God’s blessing and embrace.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

Prayer

Lord upon the cross, nowhere is outside your love. Help me to live in this world in the light of that truth.

Day 41 – Wasteful

Wasteful - Banjul 2002 (DS)

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. (John 12: 1-7)

Why this waste? Because this is how God loves. Divine love has no interest in restricting itself to what is ‘necessary’. It is no use looking to the events of this coming we
ek for a proportionate, costed response to the needs of the world. It is not means-tested, not tied to productivity or deserving. The generous sacrifice of Jesus cannot be summed up in sober moral equations or legal judgements. God’s love is simply not sensible like that. It is beyond measure, poured out in overwhelming excess over an ungrateful, uncomprehending world. Mary knew this. In her gift to Jesus, she mirrored the wastefulness of God. She was loving as God is loving. Her love was poured out like God’s and for God, beyond thought of cost and beyond any notion of what is sensible.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

Prayer

Jesus, may all my living reflect your extravagant, wasteful love, and may those whose paths I cross catch just a little of the fragrance of your presence.

Day 40 – Freedom

Helensburgh (C) Robert Bell - used with permission

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery… For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. (Galatians 5: 1, 13)

 We are not born free. We must learn freedom, and we all start from very different places. A gymnast knows that their effortless freedom is the result of endless practice. For someone with fragile self-esteem, the invitation to freedom will be received vulnerably, and the response will take real courage. But Christian freedom is not a demand; it is a gift. Jesus know what it asks of us and what we need to let go in order to embrace it. Freedom is the practice of obedience. This is not the contradiction it sounds, for to be free is to be living in complete obedience to the environment for which we were made. That environment is the love of God. The freedom he gives us is to become the people he has truly made us to be.

(Extract from Dust & Glory by David Runcorn)

For Reflection

Think of a time when you experienced a sense of complete freedom. How did it feel?

Prayer

Lord, teach me to serve you with my freedom.