cross

Jesus, fight for me against Satan

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
Lord Jehovah,
judge my cause and fight for me against Satan and his host.
Lay the strong one low!
 
I have cast off his yoke, and renounced his cursed power.
He doubly hates this, and longs to seize me as his prey.
 
I flee to you and to your cross for help.
He would win if you did not deliver me – but you have already defeated him.
 
Do not let him conquer me! Put him to shame, O Lord my God! 
Give me victory!
 
It is not strength that wins; my weakness is my shield.
In lowly trust we fight the fight, and weakness wins the battle.
 
So give me a lowly heart, and cast away each prideful thought.
Let gentleness and love come in instead, and abide in my life.
 
Your will, not mine, be done. I resist my selfish desires.
Let me ever and always be your servant only.
 
Jesus, I flee to you. I cling to your cross.
Save me from Satan’s hellish power and pluck me from his grasp.
 
So I will praise you, Lord, and adore your great name.
With Father and Spirit one, forever and ever, amen.
 
Ephrem the Syrian, c.306-373, Syrian hymn writer and theologian
 
____________________________
 
 
Be sober-minded; be watchful. 
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 
Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering 
   are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, 
    who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, 
    will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 
To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
 

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Spirit, breathe your story of truth into ours

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Geralt via Pixabay
 
Truth-telling, wind-blowing, life-giving spirit –
    we present ourselves now
        for our instruction and guidance;
    breathe your truth among us,
        breathe your truth of deep Friday loss,
            your truth of awesome Sunday joy.
 
Breath your story of death and life
    that our story may be submitted to your will for life.
We pray in the name of Jesus risen to new life –
        and him crucified.
 
Walter Brueggemann, 1933 -2025,  American Protestant Old Testament theologian
Prayers for a Privileged People
 
________________________________
 
 
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. 
He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, 
    and he will tell you what is yet to come. 
He will glorify me because it is from me
    that he will receive what he will make known to you. 
All that belongs to the Father is mine. 
That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.
 

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Prayer professing faith

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
painting by Carl Heinrich Bloch, 1881 via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
God, Creator, you planned from the beginning –
    telling evil that the woman’s offspring would crush it.
You called to Abraham from his land on the margins to follow you. 
He and three more generations relied on you to live in a strange land. 
Later, you led the descendants of Israel out of Egypt, out of bondage. 
You led your people with judges like Deborah, 
    with kings like David whose family included migrants, 
    and with prophets like Daniel who lived as minorities in strange lands. 
In all these ways you remind us to focus our hope on your salvation 
    rather than in an earth-bound culture. 
And when it seemed that you were absent, you sent your Only Son.

Transgressing our sense of power, your Son was born as the baby of a virgin. 
Tempted in the ways we still are – riches, fame, and glory – 
    he chose a life of humble service, service to others even while he was betrayed. 
He drank the full cup of suffering. 
In his humiliation he was deprived of justice and tortured. 
Jesus suffered outside the city gate to make people holy through his own blood.

When he died, he crossed the border of hell. 
Three days later God raised him from the grave, exchanging death for life. 
He appeared to Mary, Mary Magdelen, Salome, and Joanna; 
    he walked with Celopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus 
    to those on the margins. 
Then he appeared to Peter and the twelve, 
Christ, raised from the dead, presents us with salvation.
 
complied by Claudio Carvalhaes, professor of worship in New York City
 
___________________________
 
 
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, 
    “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 
     and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations,
     beginning at Jerusalem.”
 

Prayer on Good Friday

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
photo by Murilo Soares via pexels
 
Prayer on Good Friday.
Which isn’t good at all.
One of the great misnomers of all time.
It’s bleak, haunted, immensely sad.
It rivets and ravages me every year 
    as I sit hidden behind a post-beam
    in the balcony of the chapel,
    where no one can see me weeping
    at the poor broken Yeshua,
    betrayed by his best friends,
    beaten by sneering cops,
    blood dripping into His eyes,
    grilled by a police chief who couldn’t care less
        about justice and mercy and only wants to evade blame
        for a matter he considers minor at best.
 
Yet it wasn’t minor at all,
     and somehow it turns on that harrowing day long ago.
A mysterious young man from a country village,
    causing an epic political and civil ruckus in the city.
A murderous mob, angry religious Brahmins, potential colonial unrest
    that will not look good at headquarters.
Gnomic answers by the calm young man when interrogated.
Poor Peter bitterly berating himself for his cowardice,
    and which one of us would have done better?
The apostles frightened, the sound of hammers 
    nailing the young man to a cross,
    the lowering darkness, 
    the murmurs of fear through the city as the sun is blotted out.
Veronica’s veil and Simon’s shoulders, Simon the African,
    did compassion surge and make him step forth,
    or was he shoved into legend by a soldier?
 
The gaunt young man sagging toward death; 
    His quiet blessing of a thief;
    His last words to his mother;
        one last desperate cry;
    He thirsts, He prays, He dies.
 
And in the chapel not another word, not another sound;
    and soon we exit silently, and go our ways,
    for once without the tang of Euchaist on our tongues,
    for once without a cheerful chaff for friends and handshakes all round;
    and no matter how bright the rest of the day,
        how brilliant the late afternoon, 
        how redolent the new flowers,
        how wild the sunset over the river
    you shiver a little; not just for Him, but for all of us,
    His children, face to face with despair.
And so silently home to pray for light emerging miraculously
    where it seemed all dark.
And so: amen.
 
Brian Doyle, 1956 – 2017, Catholic author from Oregon
A Book of Uncommon Prayer
____________________________
 
 
It was now about noon, 
    and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,
    for the sun stopped shining. 
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 
Jesus called out with a loud voice, 
    “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
When he had said this, he breathed his last.
 

reconcile us

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
O God, Giver of Life, Bearer of Pain, Maker of Love,
    you are able to accept in us what we cannot even acknowledge:
    you are able to name in us what we cannot bear to speak of ;
    you are able to hold in your memory what we have tried to forget;
    you are able to hold out to us the glory that we cannot conceive of.
 
Reconcile us through your cross to all that we have rejected in ourselves,
    that we may find no part of your creation to be alien or strange to us,
    and that we ourselves may be made whole.
Through Jesus Christ, our love and our friend.
 
Janet Morely, British author, poet, and Christian feminist
 
___________________________
 
 
But now, this is what the Lord says—
    he who created you, Jacob,
    he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
 
 
For God in all his fullness
    was pleased to live in Christ,
 and through him God reconciled
    everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
    by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.

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the last step of love

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Cristo crucificado, Titian via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
A few hours more,
A few minutes more,
A few instants more,
For thirty-three years it has been going on.
For thirty-three years you have lived fully minute after minute.
You can no longer escape, now; you are there, 
    at the end of your life, at the end of your road.
You are at the last extremity, at the edge of a precipice.
You must take the last step,
The last step of love,
The last step of life that ends in death.
 
You hesitate.
Three hours are long, three hours of agony;
Longer than three years of life,
Longer than thirty years of life.
 
You must decide, Lord, all is ready around you.
You are there, motionless, on your Cross.
You have renounced all activity other than embracing these 
    crossed planks for which you were made.
And yet, there is still life in your nailed body.
Let mortal flesh die, and make way for eternity.
Now, life slips from each limb, one by one, finding refuge in his 
    still beating heart.
Immeasurable heart,
Overflowing heart.
Heart heavy as the world, the world of sins and miseries that it bears.
 
Lord, one more effort.
Mankind is there, waiting unknowingly for the cry of its Saviour.
You brothers are there; they need you.
Your Father bends over you, already holding out his arms.
Lord, save us,
Save us.
 
See.
He has taken his heavy heart,
And,
Slowly,
Laboriously,
Alone between heaven and earth,
In the awesome night,
With passionate love,
He has gathered his life,
He has gathered the sin of the world,
And in a cry,
He has given all.
‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.’
 
Christ has just died for us.
 
Michel Quoist, 1918 – 1997, French Catholic priest and writer 
 
_____________________________
 
 
It was now about the sixth hour,
    and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 
    while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, 
    “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” 
And having said this he breathed his last.

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mourning my sin

/ Eric Mathews / 2 Comments

Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

 
Eternal Father,
You are good beyond all thought,
    but I am vile, wretched, miserable, blind;
My lips are ready to confess,
    but my heart is slow to feel,
    and my ways reluctant to amend.
I bring my soul to you;
    break it, wound it, bend it, mold it.
Unmask to me sin’s deformity,
    that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it.
My natural abilities have been a weapon of revolt against you;
    as a rebel I have misused my strength,
    and served the foul adversary of your kingdom.
 
Give me grace to mourn my unconscious folly.
Grant me to know that the way of transgressors is hard,
    that evil paths are wretched paths,
    that to depart from you is to lose all good.
I have seen the purity and beauty of your perfect law,
    the happiness of those in whose hearts you reign,
    the calm dignity of the walk to which you call,
         yet I daily violate and condemn your precepts.
 
All these sins I mourn, lament, and for them cry pardon.
Work in me a more profound and abiding repentance;
Give me the fullness of a godly grief that trembles and fears,
    yet ever trusts and loves,
    which is ever powerful and ever confident;
Grant that through the tears of repentance may see more clearly
    the brightness and glories of your saving cross.
 
 
__________________________
 
 
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, 
    but worldly sorrow brings death. 
See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: 
    what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, 
    what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. 

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beginning Lent

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image via Pexels
 
 
Loving Lord,
at the beginning of this Lenten season,
we are met with the challenge of handing over
every bit of our lives that do not come from You.
To rid ourselves of what clutters our lives,
and all that distracts us from the simple truth
of Your love for us.
 
Your prophets have called us to change the way we worship—
to make internal sacrifices instead of external ones.
To seek justice, and love kindness,
and walk humbly with You
each and every one of our days.
 
If we don’t give anything up for Lent,
then let us at least give up this:
that we might cease living in ways that disconnect us from You,
for every one of our steps is like a circle around Your temple.
Perhaps this Lent,
we can give up our way
and give ourselves to Your way for us.
 
So, lead and guide us on this Lenten way.
May we walk with Jesus toward the hill just outside of Jerusalem.
May we like Him take up our cross and follow,
spending each moment of our lives living responsively to You,
just as Christ Himself did.
For that is the faithful way. 
Amen
 
Patrick Ryan, Presbyterian pastor in West Virginia.
 
___________________________
 
 
Then he said to the crowd, 
“If any of you wants to be my follower, 
    you must give up your own way, 
    take up your cross daily, 
    and follow me. 
If you try to hang on to your life, 
    you will lose it. 
But if you give up your life for my sake, 
    you will save it.
 

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A final meditation

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Sir Thomas More, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
Give me grace, good Lord
To count the world as nothing,
To set my mind firmly on you
And not to hang on what people say;
To be content to be alone,
Not to long for worldly company,
Little by little to throw off the world completely
And rid my mind of all its business;
Not to long to hear of any worldly things;
Gladly to be thinking of you,
Pitifully to call for your help,
To depend on your comfort,
Busily to work to love you;
To know my own worthlessness and wretchedness,
To humble and abase myself under your mighty hand,
To lament my past sins,
To suffer adversity patiently, to purge them,
Gladly to bear my purgatory here,
To be joyful for troubles,
To walk the narrow way that leads to life,
To bear the Cross with Christ,
To keep the final hour in mind,
To have always before my eyes my death,
    which is always at hand,
To make death no stranger to me,
To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell,
To pray for pardon before the judge comes;
To keep continually in mind the passion 
    that Christ suffered for me,
For his benefits unceasingly to give him thanks;
To buy back the time that I have wasted before,
To refrain from futile chatter,
To reject idle frivolity,
To cut out unnecessary entertainments,
To count the loss of worldly possessions ,
    friends, liberty and life itself as absolutely nothing,
    for the winning of Christ;
To consider my worst enemies my best friends,
For Joseph’s brothers could never have done him
    as much good with their love and favor
    as they did with their malice and hatred.
 
Thomas More, 1478-1535, English statesman, beheaded by Henry VIII
________________________
 
 
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. 
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 
Be wretched and mourn and weep. 
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
 

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Pieces of wood . . . to build one cross

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
Pieces of wood,
broken and burnt,
stained with blood of family,
derelict in the smouldering heap.
The smell of death
in dusty roads,
sounds of weeping,
darkness and gloom.
 
Pieces of wood
pierce the wounded side,
lightning and thunder,
shots of gunfire,
rending cries of
mothers and daughters
in the sleepless houses
waiting for the first light.
 
My God, my God, why have you abandoned us?
why have you forgotten us,
forsaken us?
 
Cry rage and revenge,
slaughter and destruction.
How long will this be,
terror in the faces of children,
hatred and fear,
over a wilderness of shacks,
the other side of the city wall,
longing for peace?
 
My God, my God, why have you abandoned us?
why have you forgotten us,
forsaken us?
 
Come,
let us carry these pieces of wood,
once part of the same ancient tree
used to build houses, proud and sturdy,
now charred ruins of dwelling places,
scattered and aloof.
 
Bind piece with piece
to build one cross.
 
Cross of Bhambayi
shelter me,
hide me from the
pain and agony
as the blood,
like justice,
flows from the cross.
 
From the soil
sprouts a new year of freedom and healing
for captives
maimed in body and
maimed in hope.
 
Sacred mystery
on the holy ground,
tree of redemption,
the flowering tree which withers
and blossoms again
from Eden to Calvary
to Easter . . .
to Bhambayi . . . 
 
Devarkshanam Betty Govinden, South African academic, author and poet
 
________________________
 
 
Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God 
    by means of his death on the cross, 
    and our hostility toward each other was put to death.
 

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