Final Prayers of Lent: Holy Weekend

Good Friday

The prompt: From the scene of the place called The Skull: "The people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at Jesus, saying, 'He saved others. Let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, the chosen one!'" (Luke 23:35).  I wonder how those who had been saved by Jesus -- the man healed of leprosy, for example, or the woman whose hemorrhages were healed -- heard those words of ridicule at the crucifixion. I wonder how those who were his disciples and friends reacted to the taunt. Jesus was supposed to save them; that's what a messiah does!

Why didn’t you respond? Why didn’t you show them your power? Who you really were/are? Why did you suffer? I don’t understand why you set all this into motion, why you had to finish it the way you did. But I look to your example, I pray I remember this example, when people scoff at me, when I am tempted to respond. Be with me Lord Jesus and help me to be like you.

Holy Saturday

Today's prayer prompt stems from a scripture reading that caught my attention last night during the Tenebrae service:

"The Son of Man goes as it is written of him,
but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed!
It would have been better for that one
not to have been born." (Matthew 26:24)

Did Jesus really say that it was better for Judas (or anyone one of us sinners, really) to have not been born? Such a denial of life from the One who spent his ministry affirming life shocks the soul ... and yet, oddly, I find that it suits our Holy Saturday reflection, because surely the disciples experienced a traumatic denial of what their lives had been about when Jesus died. After he was buried, did they wonder whether it would have been better to never have known Jesus?
In your prayer-writing today, consider the sudden vacuum to life -- the loss of purpose and hope -- that the disciples felt, that you have experienced, that others struggle through.

Would it have been better to not have come here?
Would it have been better to have gone a different direction?
Father, the despair that is so easy to see and feel during those difficult times,
Blessed am I that I have not wished to have not been born
For you have had much planned
If not for this place, would I have the same family?
Would I be the same person?
Thank you, Lord, for the perspective of that loss
When life has lost meaning
When the will to go on is difficult
Yet, each day, we do. We go on.
With you beside us and before us.

Easter Sunday

From Luke's telling of the resurrection story: "Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened." (Luke 24:12, NRSV) Amidst the loud exclamation points of this holy day, I invite you to be still and to find your prayer in the quiet amazement of Easter's good news.

In the stillness of the morning
Frost on the grass
Sun slowly rising
Waking the world to the new day
A different new day
A day unlike all the others
The quiet of that garden
The silence must have been heavy
Looking, hoping, wondering
The silent amazement
The wonder of what had happened
And knowing who you are
Keeping that knowledge inside
For only a short time 
Savoring the Good News
The anticipation of sharing it
In the stillness of the morning
Frost on the grass
Sun slowing rising
Today is a New Day