Holy Week
Last Sunday, our God Debate series wrapped up with a dialogue, our first attempt at what we call Deep Dive Live. Every few months we intend to air out some of the conversations and questions that take place “off the stage”. We want to involve our community in the process so we welcome your feedback and participation.
And now we move towards the central story in our Christian faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus. This Sunday is “Palm Sunday”, our entry into Holy Week. We join the many pilgrims and worshippers around the world as we pay attention to what God has done for us in Jesus. This is a good place to for us to journey into after the recent dialogue and conversation about God and his existence. We now enter the season in which conversations and questions can be laid aside for a time, a season to be silent and pay attention.
I personally believe that a healthy faith community will encourage a variety of ways of being: seasons of energetic dialogue (such as we just had), and times like Holy Week in which we are encouraged to stop talking and pay attention in worship. For when God is revealing himself and his way -- which is what we deeply believe is happening in the Easter story -- we are compelled to shift away from conceiving of God as an intellectual puzzle to solve. Instead, we learn to encounter God as the personal presence who reveals himself in the narrative flow of history and in the story of our lives. Easter is a story that requires us to notice all the parts, letting nothing slip by. This is difficult if we are distracted or pre-occupied, or if we are still talking about any and all other things.
I have been thinking about a passage from the prophet Habakkuk, and I think it might be an appropriate lead-in to Holy Week. There is a long history in the Biblical tradition of warnings against idolatry, that is, the problem of making gods to serve us, gods we dream up, gods we understand, gods we can control. The prophet Habbakuk continues this warning, mocking the futility of such an enterprise [Habakkuk 2:18-20]:
"What's the use of a carved god so skillfully carved by its sculptor? What good is a fancy cast god when all it tells is lies? What sense does it make to be a pious god-maker who makes gods that can't even talk? Who do you think you are— saying to a stick of wood, 'Wake up,' Or to a dumb stone, 'Get up'? Can they teach you anything about anything? There's nothing to them but surface. There's nothing on the inside.What does Habbakuk the prophet say we should do instead? He tells us to redirect our energies and attention; he tells us to look and listen:
"But oh! God is in his holy Temple! Quiet everyone—a holy silence. Listen!"
I am always moved and unsettled at what I see in the Easter story. It reminds me that the God I love and serve cannot be reduced to anything that originates in my concepts or arguments. Easter reminds me that I must stop making a “god” I can understand, and instead, see the God who is there, the God who came into our humanity in Jesus. Easter is the time to be silent and pay attention.
My prayer for you this Easter is that you would be moved to worship, to see the God who reveals himself so surprisingly and beautifully in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.
This Sunday we begin our Holy Week journey. Join us this Sunday at 9:29 and 11:11 am. A Special Good Friday service will be held on April 10 at 10:10 am. And then Easter Sunday on April 12. Silence everyone -- listen!
Bob
posted by DSW at
12:26 PM
3 Comments:
Hi Bob,
I was reading Psalm 65 this morning at the invitation of the Holy Spirit. I'm not quoting, but the beginning identifies God as hearing prayer in the silence (MSG).
Hope you are well,
Linda J
By
Linda, at 10:53 PM
from "Absolute Truths" by Susan Howatch
Artist –
"Creation has to be the greatest pleasure in the universe, but it can be pretty damned harrowing when the work's in process"
When things go wrong I don't chuck in the towel. I just slave harder than ever to make everything come right. That's what its all about. No matter how many disasters happen, no matter how many difficulties encountered, I can't rest until I've brought order out of chaos and made everything come right.
Of course I made a lot of mistakes, I turned down various blind alleys and had to rework everything to get back on course. But that’s normal. You can't create without waste and mess and sheer undiluted slog – you can't create without pain. It's all part of the process. It's the nature of things"
"No creator can forget! If the project starts successfully you're hooked, and once your hooked you're inside the work as well as outside it, it's part of you you're welded to it, you're enslaved, and that's why it's such bloody hell when things go adrift. But no matter how much the mess and distortion make you want to despair, you can't abandon the work because you're chained to the thing, it's absolutely woven into your soul and you know you can never rest until you've brought truth out of all the distortion and beauty out of all the mess – but it's agony, agony, agony – while simultaneously being the most wonderful and rewarding experience in the world – and that's the creative process which so few people understand. It involves indescribable sort of fidelity, hope and love. You love your work and you suffer with it and always – always – you're slaving away against all the odds to make everything come right."
Theologian –
"When the work is finally finished does every step of the creation make sense? All the pain and slog and waste and mess – how do you reconcile yourself to that? Is every disaster finally justified?"
Artist –
"Every step taken – every bit of clay touched – they're all there in the final work. If that hadn't happened, then the creation wouldn't exist. In fact they had to happen for the work to emerge as it is. So in the end every major disaster, every tiny error, every wrong turning, every fragment of discarded clay, all the blood, sweat and tears – everything adds meaning. I gave it meaning, I reuse, reshape, recast all that goes wrong so that in the end nothing is wasted and nothing is without significance and nothing ceases to be precious to me"
Theologian –
So you're saying that the creative process includes a very strong doctrine of redemption"
Artist –
"I don't trust those theological words, - speaking as a creator I'd say he makes too many mistakes. I deal in inert materials, God deals in living creatures. If I were one of God's creative mistakes – a child dying of congenital disease, perhaps – I'd want to kick God in the teeth"
Theologian –
"So would I, but if God never wills the suffering and works always to redeem it – if he's driven on by hope, faith and love to make everything come right – if he's inside the work as well as outside, sharing the pain and suffering alongside his creation…."
Artist –
"I'd still want to kick him in the teeth and scream at him for making such a mess."
By
rightleft33, at 3:43 PM
“Deep Dive Live”. Every few months we intend to air out some of the conversations and questions that take place “off the stage”.
What and where is this off stage? Is the off stage a mere set change to the play, just another illusion within the play (church) itself?
All the world a stage.
Speck plain, come off the stage!
I’m angry at God and I’m angry at the church. At Easter I can’t help but wonder if Christ took the easy way out? Relatively quick way to go, a suicide by cop, but not really, being God and all.
- I’ll be back.
Mission completed, done, finished, time to go home, no need to stick around for the aftermath, to grow old and experience the deepest pain the uncertainty of life can bring. The uncertainty that were doing, have done, are doing what we need to, are meant to be, that we are enough either way. Not to worry Christ feels your pain and suffers with you. And oh not to worry,in the end, it will all be for the good. Not that the good means anything.
By
rightleft33, at 1:39 PM
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