Passion

I just finished a felted wool sculpture for a gallery display. I've titled it "Savior Creator". Before Jesus was attached to the backboard frame, Dawson's friend Connor was holding it, hugging Jesus and saying he was cuddly. I got the idea of the mobile extended from the book The Shack, in which Jesus says, "I don't want to be first among a list of values. I want to be at the center of everything. When I live in you, then together we can live through everything that happens to you. Rather than a pyramid, I want to be the center of a mobile where everything in your life--your friends, family, occupation, thoughts, activities--is connected to me but moves with the wind, in and out and back and forth, in an incredible dance of being."

Wire provides the internal structure with foam, wrapped with batting before adding the wool I needled into shape. I had several pictures to look at for the shaping. I looked at Rembrandt's face of Jesus, but people are telling me he resembles Monte. I have looked at Monte daily for thirty five years. In trying to think thru what I wanted hanging from the mobile, creation is where I ended the process. The background in the frame is felt, and various yarns embellished with my needlefelting machine. His outstretched arms are the same width as mine.

I decided to also post a picture I drew in college from my sketch book.

Passover

Benjamin West, in 1784, painted this first piece of art depicting the Lord's supper. He is our first born-in-America artist, born of a Quaker family. Quakers wanted nothing to do with "graven images" and his becoming an artist makes for an interesting story in a great book by Marguerite Henry. I love retelling this story!

The 2nd piece is a very early, 1150-1200 English fresco. As was traditional in early paintings, Judas is on the other side of the table. I find it amusing that so many Lord's Supper pictures have everyone on one side of the table as if they're posing for a photo. And, if you look thru the several hundred pieces done on this scene, so many have the Beloved John sleeping ... And why in the midst of this special feast would the disciples start arguing!

The third art is from 1542 by Italian Jacopo Bassano Ultcen. This is it restored. It was heavily painted over when the fashion did not like greens, pinks and oranges. And then the 4th piece, by Hans Holbein in 1525, has parts missing, the rest of the disciples, and has been restored too. There's been eras of history when iconoclasts rioted destroying many works of art. Jesus' head had been sawed out of this picture and then crudely glued back in. The next pieces: Le Dernier Repas, an African Mafa interpretation, a stained glass in NJ, and the washing of the feet, I don't know.

The disciples had no clue Jesus was going to die. Jesus shared the meal with them, with special twists that would tell his story more powerfully than any other way. Jesus must have played the role of the father in the typical seder, but as he did with everything, he made the Passover become personal. Jesus' new Passover speaks even more powerfully of God rescuing His people in a new and complete way.

The Passover meal became the Lord's Supper. The Passover Lamb becomes the Lamb of God. Instead of just remembering the slaughtered firstborn of Egypt - we remember that Abba Father slayed His firstborn. Instead of smeared blood protecting the firstborn - Abba protects those who drink from His firstborn's cup.

Jesus made himself the center of the Passover re-enactment. Jesus established the physical bread and wine so we will never forget his gracious act of love for us. It's a meal that speaks more volumes than any theory. We participate in his life (and death) for us. We physically remember. Jesus asks us to "taste, see, and know My presence".

Loosing Myself?

This is Passion Week, Jesus is in Bethany/Jerusalem. Mary anointing Jesus' feet with costly perfume took place this week. This picture hangs in 'my office' and I gaze at it often as I sit in my favorite chair. It's a scene I often contemplate ...

"Unless a grain is buried, dead to the world, then it sprouts itself many times over ... If you let your life go, reckless in your love, you'll have life forever ..." And this is what Mary did. Judas thought it a reckless extravagance. Jesus said, "She has done a beautiful thing to me - preparing me for burial". I'm sure the fragrance filled the house, and I imagine the fragrance stayed with him through his trial and beating and death.

My contemplation? It is very easy for me to 'lose' myself in God ... but can I 'loose' myself, as did Mary?

Triumphal Entry?

I took this picture last year, and again this year, our kitchen table looks the same, just new palm fronds from church this weekend. I made a wool Jesus to ride the donkey from my Christmas creche along with the Passover sheep, entering Jerusalem that same day.

I found a Palm Sunday tradition that I often do - making a sweet bread in the shape of a chicken with baby chicks under the mother hen, click here for the recipe. It comes from Jesus overlooking Jerusalem and weeping. Jesus wished he could "gather them under my wings like a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings".

I've been sitting with scripture this morning connected with Palm Sunday and a Zechariah passage one of our pastors read at church yesterday. When you read the Triumphal Entry story of Jesus entering Jerusalem in Matthew, a piece from Zechariah 9 is quoted. This entrance was prophesied, but the Jews were not remembering the whole prophecy.

Wouldn't Jesus, if he were going to usurp the existing rule, and reinstate Israel's Monarchy, ride in on a stallion or in a chariot? This is the way a real king would want to enter! Jews have always wanted their own king, and that's their vision for the Messiah.

History books tell of many war horses entering Jerusalem, but none mention a donkey. Jeru-salem, "city of peace", has seen much war.

Zechariah says, "Your king is coming! a good king who makes all things right, a humble king riding a donkey ... I've had it with war ... no more war horses in Jerusalem ... He will offer peace, a peaceful rule worldwide ... And you, because of my blood covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from their hopelessness."

When Jesus began his ministry he read from the scroll of Isaiah saying of Himself, "The Spirit of God is on me. He sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners. God sent me to announce the year of His grace ..." The Year of Jubilee was to be celebrated, a Leviticus law, every 50 years. Jesus' kingdom is this Jubilee. As Zechariah 9 goes on to say, "From now on people are My swords."

What is our vision of a returning Jesus?

Advent Ending

I've not posted for a few days! Monte got home from Norway at 2am Monday. We went to Travis and Sarah's Tuesday, bearing gifts: Christmas presents and tons of food. We spent the night there and had a wonderful fun family time together - new memories: Las Posadas food. The hit? Yes tamales were good, as was the green mole pork stew, churros ... ha ... we have to perfect ... But the stuffed jalepenos wrapped in bacon and baked, were our first bite, and everyone was lifted into another place. "Oh, man", said Travis. "They are luscious!!!!!!!!!!!" said me. We ate the leftovers, looking forward to them, for lunch the next day (after playing the game "SET".

This is going to post as AM, but I'm finishing writing now in the PM. Dawson woke earlier than I thought, and I put our "Pankaka" (Swedish oven pancake) in the oven, and we spent some time together before he left to carry on celebrating with his girlfriend, Splarah (Sarah's), extended family. So it's just Monte and me, and he's feeling the effects of his long trip without sleep for 24 hrs, so napping. Dawson and me set him up on Facebook, and I'm downloading some pictures for him. So I'm going back and forth.

My emotions have gotten stirred up as the day progresses ... Heather & Bill called this morning to talk Christmas, but also that his date for redeployment could be before their baby is born. Their first baby, and married a year ... I'm bummed ...

So, I was going to give the remainders of my Advent Basket. Maybe as I start typing and sitting with scripture ... I'll feel a little better.

Advent day 22's miniature was a dove. And the paper insert reads, "We learned what a cross stands for; what does a dove stand for? Read Matthew 3:13-17." Jesus insisted that John baptize Him. This is a setting where the fullness of God is there: God Incarnate coming out of the water, God's Spirit - looking like a dove, and God's voice. And John the Baptist saying, "Here is the Lamb of God, come to take away the sins of the world".

Day 23 has a little skein of wool. "Where does wool come from? In John 10:1-18 Jesus is the Good Shepherd. Who are His sheep?" When I rededicated my life to God I wore a necklace, till I lost it, of Jesus carrying a sheep in his arms - that was me!

Day 24 has a marble. "This is the world. Read John 3:16. What did God do for the world?" God, so loves the world, He incarnates Himself, taking on human flesh, from the beginnings in a womb, birthed and laid in a wooden feed trough for a bed ... to a death for us, the world; hanging to death on a wooden cross. God asks us to believe IN this, IN Him, so that we might not have to die our deserved deaths, but live incarnately with Him, on into eternity!

Day 25, today, has a miniature baby. "What do we celebrate this day? Read Luke 2:1-20." Remember Linus, his voice was refreshed in my memory, not only from church last night but a radio program we listened to - Linus tells Charlie Brown what the true meaning of Christmas is - reciting this Luke passage from memory. We lit the center Christ child candle in the Advent wreath.

The John 10 passage I so love and have often meditated and journaled on. My favorite phrases? "He calls his own sheep by name ... he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice ... I know my sheep and my own sheep know me ... I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary ... I need to gather and bring them all in ..."

Which reminds me of a story I read -
"One cold night years ago in North Carolina I went outside to check on some animals then housed in my father's small barn. There was a full moon shining down in bright, brittle light above the pines. It was so cold that the water in the horses' trough had frozen over, unusual for the coastal counties. As I went to get an axe to chop through the ice, I noticed a yard chicken, a hen, perched near the trough, with several biddies tucked under her wings. I was impressed with how she had turned her face and frail body of fluff into the icy wind, her wings outstretched and, it seemed to me, surely tired, for the sake of her children. And I was uplifted by what I took to be a gift and encouragement to my faith, this visual depiction of Jesus' care for me.

"But it struck me that those chicks had come to the hen. I don't know if she chased them around the yard first, if some came more willingly than others, or if some were still out there half-frozen. (There were a few late arrivals perched on top of her wings.) I only know the chicks I could see had allowed themselves to be gathered up and protected. They had quit fighting what they had no control over in the first place and said, 'You do it, Mom.'"

Jesus did stand, looking over Jerusalem and wept saying, "how often I have longed to gather you children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings".

Burning Heart

This morning's reading brought me to the two guys walking the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. This is another story in Scripture I love. I would so love to hear Jesus tell stories. They were trying to make sense of what just happened in Jerusalem. Jesus walked up asking, "What are you so intently discussing?" and walked and talked with them.

Everyone was so sad. All their hopes that Jesus was the one to redeem Israel were shattered. Jesus couldn't have been the one, because they killed him.

We ourselves have just come through the season of Lent and lived again through the week of passion. I put a potted cross Dawson made years ago for me along with a barbed wire 'thorn of crowns' on our kitchen table adorned in black from Good Friday through Saturday night. In the hopeless waiting, in puzzlement over it all, we can ask questions too, like: How can we make sense of it all? What on earth has gone so badly wrong? Why should this have happened? If we want God's hope, God's love, God's thoughts instead of ours - then we have to go though a time of silence, of resting, of unknowing.

John's "Word of God" fell silent; the living water no longer flowed; the bread from heaven scattered; the light of the world got snuffed out; the good shepherd, snatched away from the flock; the grain of wheat, falling into the earth died; the Messiah came, and his own rejected him.

Then I ponder two lines from a poem, (I think by TS Eliot): "On the seventh day God rested in the tomb/ Having finished on the sixth day all his work of joy and doom."

But surprise!
Jesus started appearing to people. He had already gone through death and out into God's new world, God's new creation and he's come forward to meet us, 'back to the present'. Though it still seems dark out there, the new world has begun.

Mary Magdalene was the first to see the risen Jesus. "Very early in the morning while still dark, she came to the tomb..." She, the first witness, brought Peter and John running to the empty tomb, puzzled and worried and scared. This was something they'd never imagined! Jesus appeared to people with his body fully alive.

Jesus is wanting us to leave the old creation behind on the cross and work at making more bits of the new creation happen within the world as it still is. Didn't Jesus keep saying, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" here and now?!


Before I go to bed Saturday night I drape the potted cross in a white lace tablecloth and hang a garland of roses. It's our early morning visual reminder of the resurrection. Some years, since Dawson and I raised silk worm moths and him other moths, I've put cocoons on the table for the days leading up to Easter, and hang butterflies we made from feathers over the table Saturday night. It helps kids understand the resurrection process better.

We need to pray for vision and wisdom to know where God can and will make new creation happen in our lives, in our hearts, in our homes and communities.

We stand on resurrection ground. We are in the Season of Easter between now and Pentecost. We need more prayer, more parties, more knocking on God's door to see what he wants us to be doing; and more celebration of God's new creation!

The two on the road to Emmaus didn't recognize Jesus. While walking, he told them stories from Scripture. They invited him home with them to eat. The moment Jesus broke the bread, they recognized him, and then Jesus disappeared. He reappeared later to the gathered disciples and there again shared stories. Like the two said, I too would love to feel (and maybe I do), "Didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked, opening up Scritpures to us on the road?"!

GOOD? Friday

Other than Jesus' words on the cross "It is finished" (accomplished, completed) and his words in Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ "I make all things new", I wouldn't call what Jesus went through 'good'.

Maundy Thursday (Passover) - Seder

Some churches have Maundy Thursday services tonight. "Maundy" is Latin for "mandatum" or "commandment" because at the Last Supper Jesus said, "A new commandment I give you: Love one another ..." Because Jesus washed the disciples feet that night, some churches wash feet.

At this meal, the disciples were expecting it to be a traditional Passover ritual they grew up with. On Passover Jews eat history, remembering the Exodus story with a Seder ("ordered") meal. This Holy day was to awaken Israel's past into her present. Passover spoke powerfully of God rescuing His people.



The disciples had no clue Jesus was going to die. Jesus shared the meal with them, with special twists that would tell his story more powerfully than any other way. Jesus must have played the role of the father in the typical seder, but as he did with everything, he made the Passover become personal. Jesus' new Passover speaks even more powerfully of God rescuing His people in a new and complete way.

Many years I've done a seder meal at home. I have a Haggadah I can copy that is a script for the ordered meal. Sometimes our kids have had friends over, and they take advantage of the idea of reclining at the table, which we've heard the Jews typically did - with low tables. It truly is eating history.

Now that one of our pastor's is Jewish, this will be the second year in a row we'll have a seder meal at our church tonight. As Christians, there's so much more depth to the ritual. "...Every time you eat this bread and drink the cup..." we are actually announcing to the world around, to the principalities and powers that keep people enslaved and fearful and angry or not living to their full selves, that Jesus is Lord, and that his death has broken the power of sin and fear and sorrow and shame. This meal propels us out into the community in the confidence that God is at work.

The Passover meal became the Lord's Supper. The Passover Lamb becomes the Lamb of God. Instead of just remembering the slaughtered firstborn of Egypt - we remember that Abba Father slayed His firstborn. Instead of smeared blood protecting the firstborn - Abba protects those who drink from His firstborn's cup.

Jesus made himself the center of the Passover re-enactment. Jesus established the physical bread and wine so we will never forget his gracious act of love for us. It's a meal that speaks more volumes than any theory. We participate in his life (and death) for us. We physically remember. Jesus asks us to "taste, see, and know My presence".

Joseph-Reputation vs Identity

Today the Church Calendar remembers Joseph. I like to remember him as the provider of shelter for Jesus and Mary. Joseph was in the stable when Jesus was born. He took Mary and Jesus to the Jerusalem Temple to present Jesus to God. He shared Mary's anxieties when Jesus was presumed lost. After this, no more is heard of him in Scripture, but I imagine him educating Jesus and training him in the carpentry business.

(This painting is by Raphael.)

Putting myself in Joseph's sandals helps me see that identity (who I really am) is more important than reputation (what others think of me). Joseph was not just a secular Jew, but was one who observed the Torah faithfully and completely, and his reputation was challenged with gossip of Mary's pregnancy. So what was going through his head? He poured over the Torah, consulting legal matters.

What to do with Mary? She says she wasn't seduced or raped, but instead "it was a miracle of God". If he marries Mary he'd lose his reputation. But what if Mary is right? Will he love God by obeying the Torah or will he love Mary? He's about to choose a private divorce when an Angel tells him not to fear (not to fear losing his reputation). I respect him for his attentiveness and listening to angels.

He married Mary, the supposed adulteress. He gave Jesus a name, becoming the legal father of this 'illegitimate' child. He loved God and others - he surrendered his heart, soul, mind, strength and reputation to God. Joseph became 'less' in the eyes of the religious Jews to provide room for a baby boy who one day would give the 'lesser' (the outsiders) a better reputation than the religious establishment.

When we surrender ourselves to God - lose ourselves - we find ourselves - our real self - we discover our true identity.

Loosing Myself

I so love John 12. I love the image of Mary anointing Jesus' feet with costly perfume just before the week of passion. A couple gave Monte and me a picture of this scene and I have it hanging in my office and can see it as I sit in my favorite chair reading.

For this Holy Week I'm reading a little book by NT Wright called Christians at the Cross - subtitled Finding Hope in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. Wright leads you with the theme of music through this week's story. When Christians say "Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures", Wright says according to the scriptures could be considered the bass part, the foundation of the tune. Karaoke recordings have everything but the melody - the song itself, because you're supposed to know the song and sing it. The Gospel Story is the melody. All the other parts create the totality of the harmony and whether it's major or minor, happy or sad.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, he knew all the Old Testament prophecies and what was ahead of him that week. John 12 mentions that Jesus' followers didn't put the pieces together until later. Isaiah said that God will send his servant, with his eyes fixed on his strange work of setting the world right through his own death.

"Unless a grain of wheat is buried, dead to the world, then it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over...If you let your life go, reckless in your love, you'll have life forever..." And this is what Mary did in anointing Jesus' feet. Judas thought it a reckless extravagance. Jesus said, "She has done a beautiful thing to me - preparing me for burial." The fragrance filled the house. The fragrance probably stayed with him through his trial and beating and death.

Who are you in the story: Martha, Mary, or Judas? Because of this scene I ponder: It is very easy for me to 'lose' myself in God, but can I 'loose' myself, as did Mary?