Welcome to my blog! Odd title you say? Yes, maybe, but I bet you would agree with me that life is chaotic! I'm mindful though, in the midst of the chaos, of Colossians 3:17 "Whatever you do, do it all in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father!" I thank God that my life gets to be chaotic...I know that through the chaos He is transforming me to be more like Him!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Ten-a-bra-what?

It's nearing the end of holy week. I always feel like I haven't done enough to prepare myself to really remember the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Our church put out a booklet for this week, with Scriptures to read everyday. We began the week remembering that we are God's special and unique creation. He created us in His image. Then we moved on to the fact that God is so big and huge, He created the universe! Yet, He chose to make us, delight in us, and send Jesus for us. We've been focusing on the realization that Jesus gave Himself up for us...willingly. Wow, amazing.

Tonight, we will be having a Tenebrae service at Pinelake. Ten-a-bra-what? You might be asking...yea, that's what I thought when I first heard of it this time last year. The word Tenebrae is Latin for "shadows" or "darkness." It is also called a service of shadows for this reason. It sounds kind of morbid traditional, I know. The service is a gradual extinguishing of different candles after a portion of Scripture is read. At Pinelake, the verses will be on the screen after we take communion together, so the verses are read in silence. At the end of the 45 minute service, everyone leaves in silence. This is so different than any other thing we do at Pinelake, but I think it's so good to make yourself quiet down and meditate on these verses as gradually the light from the candles go out, leaving complete darkness and silence.

This is what everyone that was close to Jesus must've felt at that moment. Hope seemed to be extinguished. Gone. Forever. Everything they had built their life upon, the person they had given up their old life to follow...dead. Our Savior...hanging on a cross, unrecognizable. Will my heart ever really, truly be able to feel that agony of losing all hope? I don't know that it will because I have grown up knowing the wonder of the cross. I wear one around my neck, on my fingers, on my clothes...but how often do I stop to make myself feel what these followers of Jesus must've felt?

That's why I'm excited about these last few days of holy week leading up to Easter! We are having a prayer experience at our church all day tomorrow also, if you're in the area you should try to come! It's open to everyone! It's a video prayer experience that will help you try to understand the magnitude of what our Savior did for us on the cross. It's from 6 until 7 tomorrow, a half-hour experience starting at the top of each hour. I will try to post some thoughts about it after I attend tomorrow. I want to leave you with these lyrics from a song that we sang this past Sunday at church that I cannot get out of my head...and I don't want to! The song is by Vicky Beeching called "The Wonder of the Cross."

May I never lose the wonder,
The wonder of the cross.
May I see it like the first time
Standing as a sinner lost,
Undone by mercy and left speechless,
Watching wide eyed at the cost.

May I never lose the wonder,
The wonder of the cross.

God, help us see it like the first time...before we got used to it! Help us remember what it was like to understand for the first time as a sinner lost...undone by mercy...completely speechless! Teach us during these next few days Father!

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