Holy Week refers to the week preceding Easter.  Through the history of the Christian church, traditions have formed around the days of this week, commemorating the final days of Jesus’ life.  In strict tradition, Maundy Thursday commemorates four events:  the Last Supper, where Jesus used the elements of the Jewish Passover to quietly proclaim he was the Messiah (instituting Holy Eucharist, or communion);  Jesus washing his disciples feet; his agony as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane; and Judas’ Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus which eventually lead to his death.   Good Friday commemorates Jesus’ crucifixion and death. 

Our church comes together each year one time during Holy Week to quietly pray and thank God for this amazing story that saves.  If you weren’t able to attend a worship service this week, let this prompt you….

God so loved the world…

Hear, O LORD, and answer me,
       for I am poor and needy.
Guard my life, for I am devoted to you. 

       You are my God; save your servant 
who trusts in you.
Have mercy on me, O Lord, 
      
       for I call to you all day long.
Bring joy to your servant, 
      
       for to you, O Lord, 
I lift up my soul.
You are forgiving and good, O Lord, 
      
       abounding in love to all who call to you.
Hear my prayer, O LORD; 
      
       listen to my cry for mercy.

 The Lord God is with us.  He is mighty to save.  He takes great delight in us; He will quiet us with His love.

 He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

songs:  I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous);  How Great is Our God (chorus)

He gave his only son….

This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created.  He before all things, and in him all things hold together.

He is the Son of God. 

He 
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 
 but made himself nothing, 
taking the very nature of a servant, 
being made in human likeness. 
 And being found in appearance as a man, 
he humbled himself 
and became obedient to death— even death on a cross.

song: There is a Redeemer

..that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus said  “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;  I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.  We have left God’s paths to follow our own.  Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.

 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.  Most people would not be willing to die for an upright person.  But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

 There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
 nothing to attract us to him.
  He was despised and rejected—
 a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
 We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
 He was despised, and we did not care.

 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
 it was our sorrow that weighed him down.
 And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
 a punishment for his own sins!
  But he was pierced for our rebellion,
 crushed for our sins.
   He was beaten so we could be whole.
  He was whipped so we could be healed.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

song: When I Survey

The call of the cross.

The cross has a voice.
The cross was calling to Jesus his entire life.  Did he hear it as a 6 year old?  I don’t know.  But in his ministry years, it isn’t hard to see that the call of the cross was underlying everything he did.  As the time drew closer for him to encounter the cross, he moved faster, he couldn’t help but speak about it more.  Somehow he was completely committed to this calling even while filled with a deep dread, expressed in his prayer in the garden.
The cross was calling to Jesus; the call was to his death.  And he went.

We thank you, Jesus, for your great sacrifice.  We thank you, Lord God, for giving up your Son.

In Mark 8:34-35, Jesus says “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.  If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.”

So the cross is calling to us as well.  Pick it up, and follow Jesus.  Don’t try to hang on to what you see as ‘life’. Give it all up for Jesus’ sake, and you will find that true, abundant, peace and hope-filled life.

Sometimes I’m not even sure what this looks like, Jesus.  Please help me be faithful in carrying and following and leaving and losing.

(Please feel free to add your prayers.)