A Map for Navigating Holy Week

As we jump into Holy Week, here are some options to guide your reflection on Scripture, one for using printed Scriptures and another is for listening and reflecting audibly. I'll also note opportunities to participate in prayer and worship with communities of people both in your area and around the globe. Do all of these, or none of them, but especially during this week, do something! Everything I'll list here will be reliable, so choose whatever draws your attention.

Option 1: Reading Through the Week

The first option is to use the passages from the Revised Common Lectionary to guide your reading this week. Normally the lectionary only gives passages for Sundays, but during Holy Week and some other special days of the Christian year, it also provides readings on some weekdays. While most of its readings rotate through a three-year cycle, the readings for Monday - Friday of this week are the same every year.

Monday of Holy Week

  • Isaiah 42:1-9: The first of four "Servant Songs" of Isaiah, all of which are included in the readings during this week. These songs both point forward to an individual (the Messiah), and describe Israel at its best. This passage describes the Messiah as one who "will not shout or cry out... a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out" until he brings forth justice on earth.
  • Psalm 36:5-11: Praise to God for his love, faithfulness, righteousness, and justice.
  • Hebrews 9:11-15: How Christ's blood on the cross was superior to the blood of temple sacrifices, establishing a new covenant, so that we could be set free from sin.
  • John 12:1-11: To begin the week leading up to his crucifixion, Jesus visits the home of his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus for the final time. At a dinner given in Jesus' honor, Mary enters and pours expensive perfume on Jesus, drying his feet with her hair.

Tuesday of Holy Week

  • Isaiah 49:1-7: Isaiah's second Servant Song, expressing that although the Messiah would be sent to bring Israel back to God, he would also be made a light for the Gentiles, so that he could "bring [God's] salvation to the ends of the earth."
  • Psalm 71:1-14: A plea to God for deliverance from the hands of the wicked. Although others will say, "God has forsaken him," the Psalmist pleads, "Be not far from me, O God; come quickly, O my God, to help me."
  • 1 Corinthians 1:18-31: "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God..."
  • John 12:20-36: Jesus predicts his death, saying that "the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified," and "unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

Wednesday of Holy Week

  • Isaiah 50:4-9a: The third Servant Song of Isaiah: "I have offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard... I have set my face like flint... It is the sovereign Lord who helps me."
  • Psalm 70: A plea to God for help when faced with the threats of enemies. Contains the words so often repeated in traditional prayers: "Hasten, O God, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me."
  • Hebrews 12:1-3: An admonition to throw off the sin that entangles us so easily and remain focused on Jesus, "who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame..."
  • John 13:21-32: Jesus predicts his betrayal and tells Judas, "What you are about to do, do quickly."

Holy (Maundy) Thursday

  • Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14: God's instructions to Moses on how the Israelites were to celebrate the Passover, which is what Jesus and his disciples were doing on this evening.
  • Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19: A psalm thanking God for deliverance from death. "How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord."
  • 1 Corinthians 11:23-26: Paul recounts what he received from the Lord regarding the Lord's Supper.
  • John 13:1-17, 31b-35: Jesus washes the disciples' feet and gives them his new command: "As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

Good Friday

  • Isaiah 52:13-53:12: Isaiah's fourth, final, and climactic Servant Song. This passage is quoted more frequently in the New Testament than any other Old Testament passage. "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed."
  • Psalm 22: The psalm quoted by Jesus from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
  • Hebrews 10:16-25: Because of Jesus' faithfulness and sacrifice, God's law can be written in our hearts and minds and our sins remembered no more. Now a new way has been opened for us to draw near to God.
  • John 18:1-19:42: John's full account of Jesus' arrest, trial, crucifixion and death and Peter's denial.

Option 2: Listen and Pray Through the Week

A friend recently introduced me to a podcast I've been enjoying greatly, which is based on the Christian year and features prayer, music, a Scripture passage and reflection for each day. It's produced by a group of British Jesuits, which provides a couple of benefits: it's very helpful in leading us to engage the day's passage of Scripture rather than just hear it and move on, and second, the British accents make the narrators sound much more intelligent and spiritual than I would in my Texas drawl.

The podcast and website are called Pray as You Go, and you can get the recordings through their website or their iTunes feed.

Option 3: Pray With a Worldwide Community on Good Friday

My friends at The Transforming Center, led by Ruth Haley Barton, are offering everyone a resource to guide your time of prayer wherever you are on the afternoon of Good Friday. I know their resources well enough to know that this will be well done, and it will provide us a way to pray together as a community regardless of where we are. Click here to read their blog post and receive their prayer guide.

Option 4: (Please do this one!) Worship and Pray with a Church in Your Community

It's always wonderful to see how many people are in worship on Easter Sunday morning, and our community celebrations of Easter will certainly be richer if we have also joined together to worship and pray on Maundy Thursday and/or Good Friday. Hopefully your church has an option on one or both of these days for you to participate in. If not, feel free to participate as a guest in a church that does. If you are in the Midland/Odessa area, join our church as we gather for a Maundy Thursday and Tenebrae service at 6:30 Thursday evening at First United Methodist Church of Midland. (Feel free to leave what your church is doing as a comment below to let others in your area know.)

Welcome to Holy Week

Even if someone is not a Christian, an honest analysis of the way that history has played out over the last 2,000 years would have to point to the events that Christians remember during the coming week as the most significant events in history. What else has shaped people and culture in such a dramatic way as the execution and resurrection of this first-century Jew from Nazareth named Jesus? (And if someone does not believe in the possibility of his resurrection, what possible course could history have taken to bring a poor Jew from an obscure place to still have such influence in our world today?) As we enter into this week, beginning today, Palm Sunday, with our remembrance of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, I have found it helpful to try to put all of the stories about Holy Week into a day-by-day context. Although we may be familiar with many of all of these stories, we often do not think about them in the context of this final week of Jesus' life, which certainly intensifies their meaning.

This is far from scientific; particularly on Monday-Wedensday, we cannot know for sure which events happened on which days, but the order of the outline below is very possible. Most of the passages below are from Matthew's account, since during this year the Revised Common Lectionary has us spending most of our time in his gospel. (Beginning tomorrow I'll post a suggested way of reading scripture this week based on the lectionary.) There are a few key events in the other gospels which Matthew does not include, so they are also listed below.

A couple of things to note: You can download full outline of the events of Holy Week in all four gospels by clicking here. Feel free to use it for your own study. Also, I got a lot of help from the NIV Study Bible's chart called "Passion Week."

Sunday:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday: Jesus is Dead in the Tomb

Then we wait for Sunday.

Wesley's Sermon 15: The Great Assize

[This is part of the Getting to Know John series on John Wesley's Sermons. Click here to see the other posts.]

Since I had no idea what the word "assize" meant before reading this sermon, I'll quickly put the definition out there: it was a court in each county in England that administered criminal and civil law. I have to mention the correct meaning so quickly to keep your mind from wandering into potential parodies of what a sermon with such a title could possibly be about. (Even though I've done so, I'm sure that friends of mine like Robert, Barry, or m.coy will will still be able to come up with some entertaining options.)

Needless to say, we wouldn't give this sermon this title today, but would probably name it "The Great Judgment." But then, regardless of the title, the likelihood of any of us writing this sermon in our time is pretty small. It focuses on God's judgment, "the day of the Lord," when after the general resurrection, Christ will sit in judgment over all people. This simply isn't a topic I've often (if ever) heard preached.

One thing about this sermon that catches my attention is that despite the teachings of Jesus and the rest of Scripture regarding the judgment, many of us (particularly us Protestants) have somehow come up with a doctrine like this: because of salvation by faith, there will be no judgment based on works.

But really? Did Jesus ever say anything to indicate that? Or, since I'm talking about my fellow Protestants, did Paul? Paul certainly says that in Christ we will not be condemned at this judgment, but he never indicates that the judgment itself won't happen. (See Scripture Plaques You Won't Find at the Christian Bookstore, #11). And what kind of interpretation is needed for teachings of Jesus like Matthew 25:31-46, for us to give up thinking what Wesley obviously thought, that we should always have in our mind that this kind of judgment awaits us?

Summary: Wesley gave this sermon to a crowd at the legal proceedings (assizes) on May 10, 1758. He begins by pointing out how judgments benefit society, and says that as helpful as those proceedings were, a much greater judgment was coming when Christ would judge the world. He then summarizes some of the prophecies of scripture about what signs would take place before "the day of the Lord," describes what the judgment itself will be like, and then discusses the revealing of the new creation after the judgment.

For further reading: You can download my ePub file of the original text of the sermon. (The sermon text is also available online here.) Or, just check out my outline of the sermon.

An accompanying Wesleyan hymn:

From the 1889 Methodist Hymnal: #55 by Charles Wesley

1 THOU Judge of quick and dead, Before whose bar severe, With holy joy, or guilty dread, We all shall soon appear; Our cautioned souls prepare For that tremendous day, And fill us now with watchful care, And stir us up to pray:

2 To pray, and wait the hour, That awful hour unknown, When, robed in majesty and power, Thou shalt from heaven come down The immortal Son of man, To judge the human race, With all thy Father's dazzling train, With all thy glorious grace.

3 To damp our earthly joys, To increase our gracious fears, For ever let the archangel's voice Be sounding in our ears; The solemn midnight cry, "Ye dead, the Judge is come, Arise, and meet him in the sky, And meet your instant doom!"

4 O may we thus be found Obedient to his word, Attentive to the trumpet's sound, And looking for our Lord! O may we thus ensure A lot among the blest; And watch a moment to secure An everlasting rest!

FUN

(This is the fourth post on the life of Chester Tyra. See also the other posts: The Man Who Never Had a Bad Day, Think of the Difference You'd Make to the One Who Needs it, My Name is Daniel, and I Was His Best Friend Too, and What Made Him Who He Was) I've already written about Chester's generosity and hospitality, and any list of words about his life would be incomplete without including joy and fun. He knew that fun was good, and in having a lot of it, his joy became contagious into the lives around him. Everyone who knew him likely has some story to tell of having fun with him, particularly if they were kids. His daughter told me about a time when she was young and they were visiting their their cousins in East Texas during the winter. They got some very rare snow, and the kids were thrilled. (Now don’t try this at home, but) Chester went to the hardware store and bought a ladder, nailed a piece of lumber into it to hold it together, tied it to the back of his car and drove the kids around town “sleighing” on the snow. She said they had so much fun... The strongest cousin had to sit in front so that any time Chester hit the brakes they could put their feet on the bumper and prevent the whole crew from sleighing right under the car. It left bruises, but it was fun.

Much of our fun with him happened in two places: the back yard of his house, or in church. Our times in his back yard at his swimming pool were a kid's dream: a diving board, toys to play with, and he even had a dome that went over the top so that we could still swim when the weather was cool. ...And there were always hamburgers and "yeller-meated" watermelon.

In church, my favorite fun thing to do with him was to make up names to sign on the attendance register to see if we could get them printed in the bulletin the next week as having been visitors. Our favorite names were Otto J. Krunk and JoAbner Ticklebritches. Chester's legacy carries on- these two men have now visited various churches across the country.

My brother, Adam, recalls a time when he was about 5 years old, as they were waiting for the ushers to come to their row and direct them to go to the front to take communion by taking a piece of bread and dipping it in the cup of grape juice, Chester elbowed him and said, "Hey boy, it's better if you stick your hand all the way to the bottom of the cup. So when Adam's turn came, he trusted Chester's advice. He took the small piece of bread and instead of just wetting the tip of it in the juice, he plunged hand and bread all the way to the bottom of the cup. He then walked back down the aisle with his sweet-soaked hand proudly in their air, proudly looking like he'd just killed something.

Not exactly reverent, but fun. I'm determined to find some good theology in that story one of these days.

Adam also makes a good point about how having fun with Chester in church when we were young shaped us for the rest of our lives. From our very earliest memories of church, we never had to be drug out of bed to go, sit through things that we thought were boring and were really only for adults, for one reason: because Chester was there. We don't remember many Sunday School lessons from those years, and certainly not any of the pastor's sermons, but we can remember how, as soon as we walked in the building we were looking for Chester and how fun it was to sit at his side every week. It was a very effective children's ministry program that didn't even require a budget (other than perhaps for Jolly Ranchers): have adults who help kids to have fun in church.

But the most telling testament to Chester’s gift of fun to those around him came from the person who knew him best. It came the day before he died when his wife told me, “You know, we were married in 1947 (that’s 63 years). That’s a long time.” Then she said, “And it was fun all the way.”

That's the stuff of a life well-lived. If my wife is with me 63 years, and one of the first things out of her mouth about me is how much fun we had, that will have been a truly good life.

I wonder how much fun we pass up for other things, and how often it's worth it? Thankfully, I'm one of many beneficiaries of Chester's ability to not pass it up very often.

My Name is Daniel, and I Was His Best Friend Too

(This is the third post on the life of Chester Tyra. Please also check out the others: The Man Who Never Had a Bad Day and Think of the Difference You'd Make to the One Who Needs it, and FUN, and What Made Him Who He Was.) I described Chester's generosity and shared one of his childhood stories that shaped him to be a generous person in "Think of the Difference You'd Make to the One Who Needs it." But Chester's generosity was not limited to Jolly Ranchers and money; the only reason my family ended up knowing him so well was because he was also generous with his time. He had an amazing gift for making people feel welcome. The clearest evidence for this was on the day of his memorial service when I had three different people introduce themselves to me by saying their names and then, "I was Chester's best friend." I know why they felt that way, because I felt that way too. I was 54 years younger than him, but there was something so genuinely hospitable about him that gave me the sense every time I saw him that our being together had made his day.

I remember writing Chester a letter some years ago because I had to express to him and Kathryn my deepest thanks for their hospitality. I was overwhelmed when I realized that through my childhood there were only two places where I felt perfectly at home: in my own house, and in theirs. And I never walked into their house without feeling completely welcome, being told that they loved me and were proud of me, getting a good hug from Kathryn, and Chester attempting to pick a fight with me. (As a kid, I always looked forward to the point in visiting him when he would look at me, put up his fists and say, "you wide-eying me, boy?" I knew something fun was coming.)

Hospitality isn't easy, nor does it happen by accident. They didn't decide to be hospitable some days and not others. Just like with Chester's generosity, I can remember their hospitality toward me being so consistent because it was deeply ingrained in who he and Kathryn were. Generosity with their resources and hospitality with their time were natural enough habits for them that it became the default thing for them to do, to welcome and to love. To make someone feel unwelcome would have been very difficult for them. (Many folks like me seem to excel at it.)

Perhaps part of Chester's legacy will be in challenging all of us to love so well that at our passing we have multiple people who will introduce themselves to one another saying, "Hi, my name is _____, and I was his/her best friend." That has to be at least as important of a goal as any of the other things we hear about aiming for in our later years, like net worths and nest eggs.

(One of the remarkable things about Chester's ability to make me and all of his other best friends feel so welcomed, with a deep sense that he loved us, was that it wasn't based on him telling us so. I've written about this in regard to parenting in the post "There's a Better Solution than Telling Your Kids You Love Them," but Chester also perfected this skill in friendship.)

Spiritual Formation Recommended Reading List

My friend Jesse recently asked me for a list of books I recommend for helping people become familiar with Spiritual Formation. There's a lot of good stuff out there these days, but I have listed the ones I consider the best of the best (so far). Since they vary in writing style, I've also noted how many pages each has and given each of them a "heaviness rating": pretty heavy, not-so-heavy, or no problem. Click here to see the list. (I've made it a static page on the blog rather than the text of a blog post, since it will always be a list in process.)

Any additions you would make?