Vain the stone, the watch, the seal; Christ has burst the gates of hell! Death in vain forbids him rise: Christ hath opened paradise!
O Lord God, the God who saves me, day and night I cry to You. Turn Your ear to hear my anguish; may my prayer come before You.
We must remember, however faint and difficult it must have been, Jesus sang Psalm 22 from the cross.
On Maundy Thursday, the Son of God was arrested like a common criminal. There is nothing normal about today or tomorrow or any day thereafter.
The singing of the Psalms over and over again throughout his life trained Jesus in the unconventional warfare of the Spirit.
The Passion of Jesus is the collision of cosmic chaos with creative love. It will unfold in a garden, no less. And from it will come the new creation.
Passion Week is the annual invitation to become disoriented by the holy love of God, shaken to the core of our comfortable being, and dispossessed of our sentimental illusions about grace.
We cannot allow ourselves to be lulled into the so-called benefit of hindsight. Holy Week is ever before us.
The psalm puts us in touch with “the joy set before us,” as we travel the desert path home.
Faith is far more about seeing a vision than possessing knowledge.
There are only two basic rules or laws in the universe: the law of sin and death, and the law of the Spirit of life.
Stories help keep our faith centered in God rather than in our own determination and drive.
