holy week, maundy thursday

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
By your cross O Lord, you show the extravagance of your love for us.  Love than knows no limits…no boundaries.  Love that pours down upon us from every wound of your beloved Son.  More love than we could ever ask for or imagine.  When we are tempted to doubt the depths of your heart for us, let our eyes immediately look to Jesus crucified—and may all doubt be taken away.  In His name.  Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 22

Scripture for the Day: Matthew 26:36-46

Reading for Reflection:

You might like to read one of the gospel accounts of the crucifixion, allowing the text to stimulate your imagination.  Or you may find the following prompts helpful:

* Build up in your mind’s eye the scene of the crucifixion.  There is a small hill outside the walls of Jerusalem.  There are three crosses.  Focus on the middle one, and see Christ stretched out on it.  He is there for you.

* Now fill in the fine detail.  He is crowned with thorns, which are tearing his skin.  Blood is dripping down.  See his face, contorted with pain.  Let your eyes move to his hands, nailed to the cross.  The ugly wounds of the nails are slowly dripping with blood.  It is a terrible sight, and you find it difficult to take in.

* Hear the crowds shouting out “Come down from the cross!  Save yourself!”  Yet he stays there and saved us instead.  There is no limit to his love for us.  He gave everything so that we might live.

Once you have built up this mental picture, ask why this is taking place.  He is doing this for us.  He didn’t have to; he chose to.  We matter so much to him.  Anyone who suffers from low self-esteem needs to take this insight to heart.  You matter to the greatest one of all!  For Martin Luther, meditating on the wounds of Christ was a superb antidote for any doubt we might have concerning the love of God for us.  He was wounded for us.  Each of those wounds is a token of the loving care of a compassionate God.  Can you see how this changes the way we think about ourselves?  We are of such importance to him that he chose to undertake that suffering, pain, and agony.

     Form a mental picture of those wounds.  Cherish them.  It is by them that we are healed.  Each of them affirms the amazing love of God for us.  Each nail hammered into the body of the savior of the world shouts out these words—“He loves us!”  How can we doubt someone who gave everything for us? (The Journey by Alister McGrath)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Lift Up Thy Bleeding Hand


When wounded sore, the stricken heart
Lies bleeding and unbound,
One only hand, a pierced hand,
Can salve the sinner's wound.

When sorrow swells the laden breast,
And tears of anguish flow,
One only heart, a broken heart,
Can feel the sinner's woe.

Chorus:
Lift up Thy bleeding hand, O Lord,
Unseal that cleansing tide;
We have no shelter from our sin
But in Thy wounded side.

When penitential grief has wept
O'er some foul dark spot,
One only stream, a stream of blood,
Can wash away the blot.

'Tis Jesus' blood that washes white,
His hand that brings relief,
His heart that's touched with all our joys,
And feels for all our grief.
Chorus


Closing Prayer:

Our God and Father,

     We thank You that You have delivered us from the dominion of sin and death, and brought us into the kingdom of Your Son: Grant we pray that, by his death he has recalled us to life, so by his love he may raise us to eternal joy.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen. (adapted from Venite by Robert Benson)