Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-Shouts of 'sanna

Shouts of 'sanna

We are just days away from Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The palm branches have been ordered, the children have practiced waving said palm branches, and the faithful church sexton has done a wonderful job preparing the church so it is fit for a king...or queen :) .

A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.
~Pope Francis

Soon our silent walks in the wilderness will yield to shouts of hosannas, and the rustling of branches will replace the sound of silence. Finally, we can smile! We can celebrate! We can hope! We can believe we again we have been rescued!

Lent is almost over. Our journey is almost complete. We've come this far. Do not lose heart, friends. As Christ called James and John, Peter and Andrew, Philip and Matthew, so Christ calls us now. We, like them, will have to make a decision soon. As the cross draws near, as the crowds press in on us, and as the rooster begins to crow, we may be tempted with a lie, a lie that we don't have enough to finish.

We aren't worthy enough to follow.

If you get to that point...WHEN you get to that point, remember this:

Love walks before and beside you. Love surrounds you when your awake and when you lie down. Love has been shaping you this Lent, beginning way back on Ash Wednesday.

The Face of Love goes with you even to the gallows of death.

Remember, our Lenten journey is not simply about keeping our chocolate urges at bay or how many cups of caffeine we didn't drink or how many hours we did or didn't sit in silence. These last 40 days were not about proving our worth by engaging in spiritual practices or avoiding something like the plague.

Rather, Lent has been about how even now we are worthy, we are desired by God. Pope Francis said it best when he said, "(W)henever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades.” He continues that, “We end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own.”

Over the last 40 days we've journeyed on what may have appeared as individual roads. But the larger picture is that we've been pilgrims together on the way to Jerusalem, traveling not alone but with each other...

with Christ.

Lent has come to awaken us. We still have plenty of time to sit at the feet of our Christ. Let's not rush the procession.

There is still time to realize that though the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. We have to trust God.

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-Sunday Rose

I have a confession:

                                                                        I am a liturginerd.

What does that mean you ask?

Essentially it means this:  someone who is extra enthusiastic about something to do with their church life, whether that’s theology, the liturgy, or just being an exuberant Presbyterian.

One of the reasons I love being Presbyterian is that we follow the liturgical calendar. This calendar begins on the first Sunday of Advent, which normally begins in late November. A major reason why the church follows the liturgical calendar/year can be simplified down to this point:  many periods of time shape us, and most of them do not begin or end at the same time.

The civic new year is, at best, a calendrical device designed to regulate the daily affairs of people. Meanwhile, the liturgical year is the year that sets out to attune the life of the Christian to the life of Jesus, the Christ. Feminist Christian mystic Joan Chittister says, “[The liturgical year] proposes, year after year, to immerse us over and over again into the sense and substance of the Christian life until, eventually, we become what we say we are—followers of Jesus all the way to the heart of God.” The liturgical year is an adventure in human growth, an exercise in spiritual ripening.

Currently the church is smack in the middle of Lent.

Did you know this upcoming Sunday, has a different name and color to it?

The Fourth Sunday of Lent (March 18th) is called Laetare Sunday, when the church (specifically speaking the Roman Church) takes a bit of breather from Lenten practice and opens worship with the Entrance Antiphon, “Rejoice, Jerusalem … Be joyful, all who were in mourning!” – taken from Isaiah chapter 66.

Like the third Sunday of Advent ("Gaudete Sunday"), the fourth Sunday of Lent is a break in an otherwise penitential season.  The day is a day of relaxation from normal Lenten rigors; a day of hope with Easter being at last within sight. One way the church has marked this hope is by changing the paraments from purple to pink. The rose colored cloth on Laetare Sunday is a custom originating as a symbol of joy and hope in the middle of this somber season.

This Sunday could not come at more perfect time. Robins have been spotted under your feeder and I bet, if you look close enough, you can see the earth come alive again.

Resurrection is coming.

Easter is near.

That is good news.

Rejoice, friends. You’re doing good work where you are, exactly as you are.

Here is one last bit of liturginerd information for ya.

Laetare Sunday is also called “Rose Sunday” because of the papal blessing of the golden rose, a floral spray blessed by the pope and given to a notable person or institution.

I’m not the pope.

But I give you this rose because your life,

your story,

your presence

is a gift to us all.

Be well. Be rose-y. Above all, be you!

No matter what the world preaches
spring unfolds in its appointed time,
the violets open and the roses,
snow in its hour builds its shining curves,
there's the laughter of children at play,
and the wholesome sweetness of rhyme.
~Mary Oliver, No Matter What

Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-Stained Glass

Stained Glass

I’ve heard it said once that each of us is like a stained glass window—beautiful, colorful, and translucent. All of us are beautiful exactly as we are but we are made even more beautiful by the light of God that shines through us revealing an inner translucent that is breathtaking.

Part of the splendor of stained glass is that it is exactly that – the colors are not painted on but are deliberately created in the manufacture of the glass by the addition of metallic salts. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.

You believe this, right? You know that you are wonderfully and beautifully made, inside and out? And you also know that God created you in the image of God?

Take a few moments and sit with this truth.

Read Psalm 139: 13-18. Look at yourself in a mirror. Look at the beauty God has created in the uniqueness of your features:  the amazing complexity of each part of your body that was formed in your mother’s womb.

Read Psalm 139: 13-18 a second time. Visualize the “colors” that God has created in who you are that give you a unique luminescence when light shines through. Thank God for the beauty of who you are created to be.

Now, before the nasty freezing rain and sleet get here, go outside and take a walk in the sun. Where do you see the glory of God shining through with that inner luminescence? Take some photos of your favorite “translucent” scenes. Write about them in your journal. Thank God for the glory that shines through all creation.

Even in creation light shines through the pollution and the de-afforestation. It isn’t just the pristine landscapes where God’s light shines, but also in that stunning sunset which is full of oranges and reds, purples and lavenders, yellow and gold.

Now, look in the mirror again. Take a good look. Perhaps you notice the crow’s feet or the bags around your eyes. Maybe you see the broken areas within, the parts no one can see. Often it is our wounded areas that glow most brightly with the inner translucence of God. What are the wounded places in your life that glow with God’s presence? Write them down and thank God for divine light that shines in and through you.

Now listen to the song below and read through these lyrics of the refrain. What else is God saying to you today? How might you respond?

Let your light shine.
Let your love show
It’s a short ride
Down the long road.
When the rains come
And the winds blow
Let your light shine
Wherever you go.