Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’(21:5 NIV)
“All our models of power and authority are useless when it comes to understanding the power of God, except by way of complete reversal…. The picture we have of the kingship of Christ in the gospels is a heartbreaking cartoon. We do not see him leading armies or holding forth to great assemblies or receiving the homage of princes. We see him torn, bloody and helpless, nailed to a cross….”
~ Richard Holloway
Psalm 118:1-2
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures for ever.(118:1 NIV)
“Normally we do theology by introducing a big-bang God almighty from the start….
But suppose we start with the cross and work ourselves back to creation. What then? Suppose we begin, as Paul does, with the foolish weakness of the cross. Yes, obviously the universe is an awesome display of power; a big-bang God has been at work. But what kind of power is God’s power? Perhaps God’s power is the modest power of a God willing to shatter divine perfections in order to give life. Perhaps creation is not so much an act of masculine domination as of self-giving, something like the agony of childbirth. And suppose the founding of the law on Sinai is not so much strong-armed police action or judicial regulation as a motherly kindness that seeks to offer freedom within protective guidance…. Do you see now how the cross redefines our doctrines of God?... God’s attributes – omnipotence, omniscience, perfection – are all redefined by the broken body of the crucified Christ. God’s self-abnegating love, a willing-to-die love, is written across all time and space….”
~ Donald Buttrick
Isaiah 50:4-9
I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.(50:6 NIV)
“Give us grace, O God, to dare to do the deed which we well know cries to be done. Let us not hesitate because of ease, or the words of men’s mouths, or our own lives. Mighty causes are calling us – the freeing of women, the training of children, the putting down of hate and murder and poverty – all these and more. But they call with voices that mean work and sacrifice and death….”
~ W. E. B. Dubois (1868-1963)
Philippians 2:5-11
Let Christ Jesus be your example as to what your attitude should be.
For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God’s equal,
but stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man.
And, having become man, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience,
even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal.”
(2:5-8 J. B. Phillips)
“But the servant-form was no mere outer garment, and therefore God must suffer all things, endure all things, make experience of all things. He must suffer hunger in the desert, he must thirst in the time of his agony, he must be forsaken in death, absolutelylike the humblest – behold the man! His suffering is not that of his death, but this entire life is a story of suffering; and it is love that suffers, the love which gives all is itself in want.”
~ Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
“When the crucified Jesus is called the ‘image of the invisible God,’ the meaning is that this is God, and God is like this. God is not greater than he is in this humiliation. God is not more glorious than he is in self-surrender. God is not more powerful than he is in this helplessness. God is not more divine than he is in this humanity.”
~ Jurgen Moltmann
A Lenten Prayer
“O Risen Christ, you go down to the lowest depths of our human condition, and you burden yourself with what burdens us… And even when within us we can hear no refrain of your presence, you are there. Through your Holy Spirit you remain in us.”
~ Brother Roger of Taize
+The meditations for Week 6 have been drawn from Bearing Our Sorrows: Christian Reflections for Courage, Hope, and Healing, by Mary Ellen Ashcroft and Kelly Bridges Elliott.
