Jesus

The New Commandment

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples, Unknown author c. 1210, Wikimedia Commons
 
Jesus, you gave us the new command to love each other
    just as you loved your disciples.
We are eager to imitate you in loving our brothers and sisters, but like Peter,
    our efforts are often more words and good intentions
        than action and sacrifice…
We want to offer ourselves fully in friendship
    but when the relationship becomes costly we disengage.
We want to reach out to those different from ourselves
    but tend to stay within our safe routines.
And when relationships lead to hurt or betrayal
    we withdraw to protect ourselves
    and fail to keep your commandment.
You know this about us.
You know that we are weak and made of dust.
 
Oh, pour out an extra measure of faith upon us!
Empower us with the supernatural ability to love 
    just as you loved.
 
But more than that, bless our flawed, timid expressions
    and communicate them through your Holy Spirit,
    so that those who we begin to love,
    know that, in fact, they are loved
    completely
    by you
just as you loved your disciples, and us, unto the end.
 
Eric Mathews
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John 13:1, 34
 
It was just before the Passover Festival.
Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father.
Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
 
A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  
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Questions

When have you experienced the love of Jesus through another person?
Who is someone you can show the love of Jesus to?

Come and wash my feet

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The Washing of the Feet, Pierre-Paul Rubens, via Wikimedia Commons
 
​Jesus, my feet are dirty.

Come and slave for me;
  pour your water into your basin
  and come and wash my feet.

I am overbold, I know, in asking this,
but I dread what you threatened when you said:
  ‘If I do not wash your feet,
  it means you have no companionship with me.’

Wash my feet, then, because I do want to have
  companionship with you.

Origen, c.185—254, Alexandrian Theologian
2000 Years of Prayer

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John 13:5-8

He poured water into a basin.
Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet,
  drying them with the towel he had around him.
When Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him,
  “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.”
“No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!”
Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”

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Question

 
What are some of the heart attitudes you’ve had 
    where you needed to be forgiven 
    and restored to a right relationship with God?
 

overturning the tables

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Christ Driving the Money Changers out of the Temple, Valentin de Boulogne, via Wikimedia Commons
 
Truth be told, Jesus,
There are lots of tables that need overturning
   in our lives;
Beneath the veneer of respectability
   the tidy rows and neat regulations
      hide dark addictions and angry judgments
         hungry greeds and heartless rejections

We know the pain—and so do those around us—
   of keeping up the facade;
What a relief it would be to have it all
   upset, smashed, scattered, destroyed

So, perhaps, Jesus, today you could pay us a visit
   and help us to radically rearrange
      the furniture of our lives

Amen.
John van de Laar, South African Methodist worship minster
www.sacredise.com
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Mark 11:15-17

And they came to Jerusalem. 
And he entered the temple and began to drive out those 
    who sold and those who bought in the temple, 
    and he overturned the tables of the money-changers 
    and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 
And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 
And he was teaching them and saying to them,
  “Is it not written, 
     ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?
      But you have made it a den of robbers.”

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Question

What area of your life needs Jesus to do some radical rearranging?

Do you weep over my city?

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He wept over it by Enrique Simonet via Wikimedia Commons
 
This is my city, Lord:
I’ve flown over it,
driven around it,
walked through it,
and I love it.
Its concrete chasms, its quiet parks,
its massive buildings and its tiny houses,
its suburbs rich and poor.
But most of all, Lord, its people…
My city, Lord. Your city.
Remember, Lord, there was one city
over which you stood and wept.
Do you weep over this city?
With its hunger, its greed, its cruelty?
Its foolishness and heartbreak?
Lord, I believe you do.
 
prayer used over Belfast, Northern Ireland
A Procession of Prayers, edited by John Carden
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Luke 19:41-42 
 
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying,
“Would that you, even you, had known on this day
    the things that make for peace!
But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

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Question

How can you join with God and others 
    in praying for your neighborhood, your city, your country?

To keep the road open to our hearts

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Christ Entering Jerusalem, Duccio via Wikimedia Commons
 
O God, whose dearly beloved Son
   was greeted by the crowd on Olivet
   with hallelujahs,
but who in the same week
   was mocked as he went lonely
   to the Cross,
forbid that our welcome to him should be
   in words alone.

Help us, we beg you, to keep the road open
   for him into our hearts;
and let him find there
   not another crucifixion,
but love and loyalty in which his kingdom
   may be established evermore.
Amen.

Walter Russell Bowie, 1882 – 1969, Episcopal priest from Virginia
The Westminster Collection of Christian Prayers

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Matthew 21:7-11 

They brought the donkey and the colt 
    and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. 
A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, 
    while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 
The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

    “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
    “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
    “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked,
    “Who is this?”
The crowds answered,
    “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”
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Question

During Holy Week, how can you worship Jesus 
    and welcome him as king into your own heart?

Grave cloths that bind me

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Resurrection of Lazarus by Henry Ossawa Tanner via Wikimedia Commons
 
Our Father in heaven, I thank you that you have led me into the light.
I thank you for sending the Savior to call me from death to life.
I confess that I was dead in sin before I heard his call,
    but when I heard him, like Lazarus, I arose.
But, O my Father, the old grave cloths bind me still.
Old habits that I cannot throw off,
    old customs that are so much part of my life
    that I am helpless to live the new life that Christ calls me to live.
Give me strength, O Father, to break the bonds;
    give me courage to live a new life in you;
    give me faith to believe that with your help I cannot fail.
And this I ask in the name of the Savior
    who has taught me to come to you.

prayer from Taiwan
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John 11:38-44 

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. 
It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 
    “Take away the stone,” he said.
    “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, 
    “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”  
Then Jesus said, 
    “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

So they took away the stone. 
Then Jesus looked up and said, 
“Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, 
    but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, 
    that they may believe that you sent me.”

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, 
    “Lazarus, come out!”  
The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, 
    and a cloth around his face.  
Jesus said to them, 
    “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

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Questions

What experiences from your past still bind you 
    and prevent you from following God as you know you should?

Wash me with your tears

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Jesus Weeps by Linda Richardson
 
Lord, we show you our wounds so that you may heal us.
And even if we do not, you know,
    and you wait to hear our voice.
Do away our scars by tears,
    like the woman in the gospel who washed your feet with hers.
 
You know how to help the weak,
    when there is no one who can prepare the feast,
    or bring the ointment,
    or carry along a spring of living water.
You come yourself to the grave.
 
So come to this grave of mine, Lord Jesus,
    that you would wash me with your tears.
With my dry eyes I have no such tears
    as to be able to wash away my offenses.
With your tears I will be saved, if I am worthy of your tears.
 
With them you will call me out of the tomb of this body and say,
    “Come forth.”
Then my thoughts will not be kept pent up
    in the narrow limits of this body,
    but may go forth to you, and move to the light,
    that I may think no more on the works of darkness,
    but on the works of light.
 
Ambrose of Milan, c.339-397, Bishop of Milan
Fount of Heaven Prayers of the Early Church

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John 11:33-36, 43-44 
 
When Jesus saw her weeping,
    and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping,
    he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
“Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
 
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice,
    “Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out,
    his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen,
    and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them,
    “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

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Question

What wounds do you have that need the tears of Jesus?

obeying the call to follow

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment

Down the mountain, Mike Moyes

 
Lord, you see my sins more clearly
than I can myself;
you know when I am untruthful
and when I think evil of others.
You see my anger
and unfairness to my friends.
You know how hard it is for me to forgive.

Lord, you know
when I am indifferent
to your Word, the Bible;
how often I forget
to pray;
the times I come unwillingly
to worship;
and yet I turn to you,
when I am in trouble.

Lord, I have sinned,
without considering how much
you love me.

Forgive me and make me clean,
so that I can obey your call
to take up your cross
and follow you.

Maureen Edwards, missionary to Kenya
Prayers Encircling the World

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John 11:14-16

Then Jesus told them plainly,
“Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there,
so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples,
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

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Question

When have you followed God’s call for your life, 
    even when you didn’t want to completely?

Give them today their daily bread

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Miracle of the Bread and Fish, Giovanni Lanfranco via Wikimedia Commons
 
Lord, when we say ‘Give us today our daily bread,’
  may we remember our brothers and sisters
  who live below the poverty line
  and pray, ‘Give them today their daily bread.’
Give us the wisdom and courage to challenge the policies and structures
  which make the poor even poorer,
  while we have more than enough.
Grant us such deep compassion that we will not rest
  while surplus food rots in one part of the world,
  and families starve in another;
for your love’s sake.

Sister Margaret Magdalen CSMV,  Anglican nun in England and southern Africa
The Book of a Thousand Prayers

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James 2:15-17  

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food,
and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,”
without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
 
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Question

How can you remember to pray more regularly for the poor 
    in your town, your region and the world?

Our Overcoming Advocate

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Jesus and the woman taken in adultery, Émile Signol via Wikimedia Commons
 
There was a time when I did not exist
   Yet you have created me;
I did not beg you for a wish
   Yet you have fulfilled it;
I did not come into the light
   Yet you have seen me;
I had not yet appeared
   And you have taken pity on me;
I had not appealed to you
   Yet you have taken care of me;
I did not raise my hand
   Yet you have looked at me;
I had not entreated you
   Yet you were merciful to me;
I had not uttered a sound
   Yet you have heard me;
I had not groaned
   Yet you have lent an ear.
With eyes that knew the future, you saw
   The crimes of my guilty self
   And yet you have fashioned me;
And now, I who have been created by you
and saved by you
and have been tended with such care,
   Let me not completely perish by the blow of sin.
      That is but the slanderer’s invention;
   Let not the fog of my stubbornness
      Triumph over the light of your forgiveness;
   Nor the hardness of my heart
       Triumph over your forbearing goodness.

Gregory of Narek, 951-1003, Armenian monk and mystical theologian

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1 John 2:1

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous.

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Question

When you consider that God knew we would choose our own way instead of his, 
    yet his plan offered salvation regardless, 
    how does that knowledge help us when we sin blatantly again?