Monday
On the following day, Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying, and he overturned the tables of the money changers…Saying, “It is not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?’ But you have made it a den of robbers” and the crowds were spellbound by his teachings.
Meditation on Mark 11:15-17
Tuesday
Jesus was teaching in the temple, calling people to love God and neighbor. Finding the people thirsty for the gospel, he said, “ You are not far from the kingdom of God.” The large crowd listened with delight as he trapped the scribes in questions, seeking something beyond rhetoric, something real.
Meditation on Mark 12:33-37
Wednesday
Fearing the wrath of Rome and the eclipse of their own authority, the chief priests and the scribes gathered two days before the Passover seeking a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him, for they said, “Not during the festival or there may be a riot among the people.”
Meditation on Mark 14:1-2
Prayer before coming to church on Holy Thursday
Loving God, Living Water, Strengthen me for your feast, for I am nervous about coming to the table, and it would be easy to stay at home. I know what you ask as you bless the cup and invite us to drink deep, and it would be easy to stay away. I know what you ask of your beloved gathered at the feast tasting the grain of paradise, and it would be easy to stay away, to never change, to never be more. But I cannot. For you are waiting, arms open wide, ready to place the bread of new life in my open hands, trembling at the thought as you offer strength for the journey and nourishment for the long road of peace. Amen.
Prayer before coming to church on Good Friday
Loving God, Living Water, It is hard to watch you, to know your struggle, to see the violence of the state that bruises and breaks, to imagine your pain, to know you stripped, betrayed and alone. But I will come. I will join you there. I will bear witness to your pain. I will come to see you in the crucified people, struggling in the streets of Lincoln and Jerusalem; to see you in the wounds that enslave humanity to power and greed; to see you in the child who hungers and the inmate deemed beyond reform, the refuge displaced and the elder abused, forgotten and alone. To see you, I will come to say, “No” to violence that betrays our humanity and, “Yes” to the sacred in eyes across our city and around the globe. I will come. Amen.
