I meet regularly with a group of ladies to study and practice together various spiritual disciplines. This past week I was unable to be there for the whole time but came in just in time to hear the last bit of a discussion on prayer, particularly focusing on prayers that Jesus prayed throughout his life. The prayers that particularly struck me where the prayers from the cross, and as this is Good Friday I thought I would try and share some of the reflections with you.

Jesus’ prayers from the cross:

“My God my God, why have you forsaken me?”

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

None of the gospels have all three of these prayers together and so honestly I had never really looked at them together before, but it struck me this time that they go beautifully together and even seem to represent a sort of progression of faith through trials.

It starts with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” We must first be willing to admit openly our own doubt, hurt, anger, sadness and despair. We must be able to admit how alone we feel, how distant God seems. We must be able to be honest enough with ourselves to allow ourselves to question God. My God, my God why have you forsaken me?!?!?!

I truly believe that question is an important one for us to allow ourselves to ask. But, I realized something else too; Jesus spoke the question in Aramaic, which at this time was one of the most commonly spoken languages of the area (if not the most commonly spoken). It never dawned on me until this week how significant that really is. Jesus was open with his questioning of God. He didn’t try to hide it, he didn’t keep it in or under wraps, and when he spoke it he didn’t just speak his question in a way that only a few would hear or understand. He proclaimed it openly and “in a loud voice” in a language that all around him would understand. I think that says something about how we should question and doubt God, and paints a picture of what that might look like that is very different from how we currently approach questioning God’s presence in the church. The church should not be afraid of people’s questions; people should not hide their questions. They should be able to be open and honest with their pain and doubt and questions not just with God, but with the community around them as well.

I think that the path to deeper faith must begin with prayers like “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?” It is only when we openly admit and acknowledge our deep hurts and feelings in community that we can move forward into healing.

The next prayer is “Father, forgive them, for they known not what they do.” This is a difficult prayer to pray. But, often in trial after we admit our pain and questions, in order to move forward we need to seek out forgiveness for ourselves and for those who have wronged us. One of the ladies in our group pointed out how rarely we really pray for GOD to forgive someone who’s wronged us. We know that we need to work to forgive them, but do we ever pray for God to forgive them? Do we really want God to forgive them? So, often even once we have come to a place where we can say we forgive those who’ve wronged us we still expect and want God to dish out justice towards them. Asking God to forgive the other who has hurt us takes forgiveness a step deeper and though it is a difficult step it is a step that takes us one step closer to the life of faith – trusting that God knows best and that His love is all encompassing for each and every one of his creatures.

As difficult as these first two prayers can be I think the finally prayer is really the hardest, but it is also the sweetest. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” From that place of doubt, of questioning, of asking, “God why have your forsaken me?” we move to a place of complete rest and surrender. Our Lord is no longer referred to simply as God, but Father. And despite the fact that He may still seem distant and that our circumstances haven’t changed  and we haven’t received a clear answer to the deepest questions we ask, there comes a point of faith where we have a decision to make… will we trust? Will we surrender over our control? Will we follow this God that we don’t understand, this God that seems to forsake us at times, this God that calls us to a new and difficult way of living? Will we open our clenched fists and allow God to take us wherever He leads us, through whatever He leads us, trusting that He is love? Will we join Jesus in praying “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”?

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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Let me set the stage: I was making lunch for a community gathering/retreat we were having. I had all these thoughts bouncing in my head about the communion experience I was helping to plan and about our community and what it means to live in community. I was feeling nervous about the time we were going to have together. The culmination of all this was the thought that would lead to my realization:

 “This is my body broken for you.”

With each tear of the lettuce and each cut of the knife the thought came:

“This is my body broken for you.”

As I set out the elements for communion:

“This is my body broken for you.”

And then I started to think about and pray for different members of our faith community the thought came again even louder this time:

“This is my body broken for you.”

I had never before thought about that statement as being about anything besides the bread of communion and Jesus own physical body broken on the cross. But suddenly it dawned on me that we have TWO things that we are told ARE the body of Christ Jesus: the bread at communion and the church (or the family of God). And it suddenly felt very real to me that when Jesus says, “This is my body broken for you” He is talking about how he himself will be broken, and about how the bread will be broken, AND about how his church and the members of his church will be broken. And this weekend I experienced that a little bit.

I feel like I experienced my brokenness and my past story and my personal expectations rub up against the brokenness and past stories and expectations of others in my community.

And it hurt…

… but today I find myself thanking God for it.

Thank you, Lord that I am part of your broken body!

Thank you for the darkness and the tension and the differences.

Thank you for hurting me so that I could more clearly see my own biases and brokenness.

Thank you for a community that is willing to be open with one another, and share our hearts and hurts with each other even when that’s really hard and when doing it might be really difficult.

Thank you for a community that is willing to love each other, and love the differences we see in each other even when those differences hurt us.

Thank you for a community that is willing to stay in it together instead of choosing the easier path.

Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you, for sending your son to be broken like we are.

Lord, I know and I trust that you are a God of restoration and redemption and resurrection. I know and trust that you love to take that which is broken and make it whole again. That’s what I see you being about and that is what I want to be about. Lord, forgive me for the ways that I have broken instead of redeemed, forgive me for the ways I have done that even tonight. Lord, continue to work in me – don’t give up on me – work in me to take all my broken pieces and make me whole. Lord, work in us as a community and make us whole. Make us a community that is about restoration and redemption and resurrection.

Tonight I still feel a bit sad and tired, but I also feel deep hope.

Tonight I was reminded of why I choose to be a part of this community, and why I love each of the unique members of this community.

Tonight I experienced more of what it means to actually live in real community.

Tonight I feel thankful.

Tonight I am encouraged to be part of God’s broken body and I look expectantly towards the resurrection and wholeness that is coming.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany

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Tara has always loved stories and over the past few years she has entered into the story of Christ and his church by observing and engaging in the seasons of the church year. Now she has created a tool to help others to engage in God’s redemptive story throughout the year. She’s calling it the “Story-Formed Calendar.” It’s a calendar that is centered on the church seasons and the story of Jesus and his church. You can see the first few pages HERE. I think it’s beautiful and I’m excited to use it over the coming year.

Tara has also created a web site where ideas and activities for each season can be shared. It’s a place where people can share the ways in which they and their family are entering into each specific church season and experiencing the life of Christ through it. You can check out the web site HERE. It’s still getting started, but already she has some great thoughts and ideas up.

So, go check it out and … Enjoy

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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I have been thinking a bit about calling and vocation lately as well as about identity and finding who I am in Christ, so maybe I saw these things in the story just because of where I am at currently, but none the less I feel like God spoke to me about this stuff.  I saw in this story a time of identity crisis for Jesus, a time of coming more fully into his own.  

So, here’s Jesus, He has this wonderful time of confirmation where John the Baptist confirms he is the Christ and then he hears a voice saying “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” That is the ultimate confirmation. God calls him his Son and says he loves him and is pleased with him – isn’t that what we all long to hear? What a beautiful time of realizing and being confirmed in who you are and who you were made to be and realizing more deeply how God sees you?!? But, then Jesus is “led by the Spirit into the desert”. And the devil comes and tempts him. Maybe I’m totally off but it seemed like it wasn’t a coincidence that the first thing the devil seems to attack is that identity and calling that Christ had just received. Each of the first two temptations begins with “If you are the Son of God…”

I wonder… I wonder if after 40 days and 40 nights without food Jesus started to question whether he had really heard that voice from heaven. I wonder if he started to doubt and question who he was in God and if he started to doubt and question his calling. Isn’t that what we do? When we have moments of calling in our lives, moments when God speaks to us and shows us more of who we are in him and how He see’s us, aren’t those often followed by such strong doubts and questions? So, here’s Jesus in the desert, alone, hungry, tired, and the devil shows up and says essentially, “Are you really the Son of God? Did you really hear that voice? Ok, well, IF you are the Son of God then do this – prove it to me and to yourself.” Isn’t the so often the voice we hear, “Does God really love you? Did he really call you to this or that? Maybe you just thought you heard him speak and it was all in your head? Who are you really?” These are questions that I know I hear often and they seem to hit me especially hard after those beautiful experiences when I hear God speaking truth to me about who I am and who he created me to be and the part in his kingdom he created me to play.

I started reading the book He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, S.J. recently and I was struck by the section where he wrestles with whether or not to go to Russian. It was a wrestling that I felt in my own life and looking again at the temptation I wonder if it is some of what Jesus went through after his baptism and before beginning his ministry…

“Anyone who has ever wrestled with his conscience over a particular course of action has experienced what I went through then. Any young man or woman who has felt called to a vocation and then hesitated, wondering if the call is genuine, knows the agonies of such second thoughts and how powerful the counter arguments can be.
Reasons and rationalizations boil through your mind. There are present and future responsibilities toward family and friends to think of, thoughts of the good to be done at home or in other possible ways of serving God and man, mistrust about the motives swaying the mind now this way and now that, doubts about one’s abilities to live up to the call (and even about the call itself), vague fears for the future and very real fears of making a mistake right here and now, knowing a decision must be made and yet knowing, too, that it involves a commitment from which there can be no turning back, something that will change the whole course of your life.”

I wonder if that is some of what Jesus went through out in the desert. It just seems to me that the temptations are about more than the actual temptations themselves, they seem to also be about whether Jesus will trust God with who He is and what his calling is or whether he will doubt God and try to step out on his own and prove himself on his own strength. I just wonder. It seems like this is a common struggle for each of us as humans and I saw this struggle in the temptations on Sunday and it made me love Jesus more to think of him having gone through this struggle with identity as well. But, of course these thoughts could lead to even stranger thoughts in relation to the trinity and the nature of Christ and all that so maybe its best not to take them too far, but I liked the idea of Jesus being fully human wrestling like we wrestle with doubts and questions of identity and calling. I’ll leave it at that.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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