lenten meditation

Palm Branch Meditation: Palm Sunday 2021

During the season of Lent, my husband, Pastor Patrick Sipes, will be our guest blogger with a series of tactile meditations exploring Sunday’s Gospel text. He is currently serving as the transitional minister at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in North Platte, Nebraska, and will be inviting congregation members into these meditations in worship. May God bless you as you explore Scripture through Prayer.

“Palm Sunday” by Bennilover on flickr.com

For this meditation you will need a palm branch. If a live palm branch is not available to you, you could cut one out of green cardstock or paper. There is a good template for one here: https://coloringpage.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pabch.pdf

Today is Palm Sunday, on this day, Jesus is welcomed into Jerusalem as a king might be. With no hesitation, animals are lent to him, crowds of people come out shouting in victory, and the road is strewn with palm branches and cloaks, a sign of honor for the one who is coming. It is quite the scene and sounds quite the alarm for the political and religious elite in Jerusalem. For them, Jesus represents a threat to their existence and way of life. For them, Jesus is someone who must be dealt with, quickly, dramatically, and publicly. Over the next week, we will take time to remember these events, to reflect on where we see Jesus as savior and where we fear Jesus as a threat to our own way of life. But for today, we join the crowd, we take our palm, and we join the throng.

As the day begins, Jesus sends a couple disciples on a mission to collect a mount for him to ride on. Telling the disciples if anyone questions you, just tell them that the Lord has need of it and will send it back later. And it works. As you hold your palm, contemplate for a few moments what you have that Jesus might need or use for his mission in the world.

(Spend a few moments in reflection.)

Knowing that you will get them back when he is done with them, offer these things for Jesus’ use when he asks for them in the future.

As the parade continues down the mountain side to Jerusalem, the crowds shout Hosanna, which means “Save us.” As you wave your palm, bring to the place of your meditation the places in your life where you need Jesus’ saving, and contemplate what that really looks like to you.

(Spend a few moments in reflection.)

With the places where we need Jesus in our lives and on our hearts and minds, we say to him Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!

As they approached Jerusalem, people laid their cloaks on the ground, and spread palm branches on the road, a sign of deep respect and honor. As you lay your palm on your lap, bring to the place of your meditation ways in which you might show honor to Jesus in the coming week.

(Spend a few moments in reflection.)

Knowing better what you need to lay down for Jesus to show him honor, ask him for help with doing so in the coming week.

Let us now enter into this Holy Week, aware of God’s connection to us, and walking through it at Jesus’ side. Amen.

If you would like to explore this text as a family devotion, check out my post for Lent in a Dish 2021 on Family God Time: https://familygodtime.wordpress.com/2021/03/25/lent-in-a-dish-2021-week-6-jesus-is-welcomed-to-jerusalem/

Seed Meditation: Lent 5 2021

During the season of Lent, my husband, Pastor Patrick Sipes, will be our guest blogger with a series of tactile meditations exploring Sunday’s Gospel text. He is currently serving as the transitional minister at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in North Platte, Nebraska, and will be inviting congregation members into these meditations in worship. May God bless you as you explore Scripture through Prayer.

Head Start seeds HAFA Farm by Media Mike Hazard on flickr.com

For this reflection you will need a seed. If you will be doing some gardening this year, and have some seed already, one of your garden seeds would be perfect for this meditation, because your prayer will continue through the summer as that plant grows. If you aren’t planning a garden, really, any seed will work, a dry bean, a kernel of popcorn, a seed that you saved from a piece of fruit that you ate, and if you don’t have any of that, feel free to scavenge in your yard or at a local park for seeds that a tree may have dropped last fall.

We begin with a seed today because in the gospel, Jesus tells us that, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” So as we begin today, take your seed, place it in a cupped hand and gaze upon it. As you reflect upon your seed, consider its smallness, consider how vulnerable it is, consider the care it needs to be brought to a more vigorous state of livelihood. As you reflect on these things, bring into the space of your meditation, the places in your life that feel as if they are seeds, places where you feel small, places where you are vulnerable, places where you could use some more care. Take some time to let these things come to you. As these things and places come to you, ask Jesus for what you need to give the seeds in your life the potential for new growth.

As you continue to reflect on your seed, take your other hand and cover it up, as if planting it in the soil. Reflect on your seed and the potential that it has for growth, imagine it putting roots down, and then reaching for the sky. As your seed begins to grow, bring into the place of your meditation, the places in your life that would allow a seed to grow, where is the soil of your life good for putting down roots that will support and sustain a newly growing thing, where is there light, and space, and openness where things will not get crowded out. Take some time to see where good soil and good spaces are present in your life. As these spaces come to you, talk with Jesus about what might grow in that space.

Now as you reflect on your seed, lift it up and imagine your seed having grown to its fullest and come to bear fruit. What fruit has come of it, how much, and whom did it feed? Bring to the place of your meditation, that fruit you desire to bear in the world, and who you wish that fruit to feed. Take some time to explore the answers to these questions. As you find answers, bring them to Jesus, let him know what you desire to do to bear fruit, and ask him to help you see the way to do so.

As you leave this time of meditation, take your seed with you, return to it as you find it helpful and continue this time of prayer with Jesus as you look deeper into the seeds within you.

Amen

If you would like to explore this text as a family devotion, check out my post for Lent in a Dish 2021 on Family God Time: https://familygodtime.wordpress.com/2021/03/18/lent-in-a-dish-2021-week-5-a-seed-dies-to-live/

Light and Darkness Meditation: Lent 4 2021

During the season of Lent, my husband, Pastor Patrick Sipes, will be our guest blogger with a series of tactile meditations exploring Sunday’s Gospel text. He is currently serving as the transitional minister at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in North Platte, Nebraska, and will be inviting congregation members into these meditations in worship. May God bless you as you explore Scripture through Prayer.

Items needed: a small piece (2-3 inches square) of dark, preferably black paper and a piece of white paper

“If this was Middle Earth” by neilmoralee on flickr.com

Dr. Craig Koester, a professor who taught me a great deal about the book of John, emphasized the contrast between light and darkness that runs throughout the book. It begins early on with John’s proclamation that “in him (Christ) was life and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5 NRSV) This theme of light and dark continues with our Gospel reading today and it is toward these themes that we turn in meditation and prayer today.

As we begin, take a few moments to get comfortable and breathe. Take your dark and light pieces of paper and hold them together in your hands. Feel free to turn them back and forth to experience the contrast between light and dark that they give. Take a few moments to feel this contrast and then settle in on the dark square that you hold.

As you hold this dark colored square before you, I invite you, as you are comfortable doing, to bring into the space of your meditation the places of darkness that you experience in your life. For each of us, these places are different, but what they make us experience are often similar. Our places of darkness leave us scared, our places of darkness leave us feeling abandoned, our places of darkness leave us feeling hopeless. Take some time to sit with your places of darkness.

(Allow some time for reflection)

As you find your places of darkness, acknowledge them, and also acknowledge that you are not alone. You are in a room full of people who know similar feelings to your own, and you are here to worship your God who has also experienced fear, and abandonment, and hopelessness. With your darkness feel and know that he is there with you, and as you feel that presence, turn your squares over to their light side.

As you hold this light colored square before you, see it as the Light of Christ. In contrast to darkness, light allows us to see what is actually around us and thus casts out fear. Light allows us to see who is around us and takes away our sense of abandonment. Light allows us to see new pathways forward and with that comes hope. Take a few moments to sit with the places that you find light in your life.

(Allow some time for reflection)

As you find your places of light, acknowledge them, and also acknowledge that their source is Jesus. It is Jesus who helps us to see when we are afraid, it is Jesus who shines in the lives of people around us, it is Jesus who gives us wisdom to walk new paths in life.

This is the light that we are promised, through Jesus, the light in our darkness, the light no darkness can overcome.

Amen

If you would like to explore this text as a family devotion, check out my post for Lent in a Dish 2021 on Family God Time: https://familygodtime.wordpress.com/2021/03/11/lent-in-a-dish-2021-week-4-jesus-is-the-light-of-the-world/

Cleansing the Temple Meditation: Lent 3 2021

During the season of Lent, my husband, Pastor Patrick Sipes, will be our guest blogger with a series of tactile meditations exploring Sunday’s Gospel text. He is currently serving as the transitional minister at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in North Platte, Nebraska, and will be inviting congregation members into these meditations in worship. May God bless you as you explore Scripture through Prayer.

Items needed: a few strands of yarn

Spindle Whorl and Loom Weights by Giles Watson on flickr.com

As we reflect on Jesus cleansing of the temple this morning, you will need a piece of string or yarn, preferably with several strands to it. As you pray you may feel most comfortable just holding the string in your hands, or if you are more of an active person, feel free to pull the strands of string apart as you reflect, and use them to make a “whip of cords” as Jesus did.

As we begin, we look at the words, “But he was speaking of the temple of his body.” We do this, because as we change the events of the day from an actual to a metaphorical one, it allows us to begin moving from Jesus cleansing the Temple in Jerusalem, to Jesus cleansing the temples of our bodies.

We begin with the cattle and the sheep that Jesus drives out. These animals were in the temple to make offering a sacrifice easier, but as animals go, they were loud, they had a tendency to not smell so good in afternoon sun, they could be dangerous if they were not controlled well enough, and Jesus drove them out. I invite you as you reflect on the whip that you hold, to bring to mind the cattle and sheep that roam in your life. Those parts that are too loud for your liking, those parts that don’t smell so good to you, those parts that can be dangerous if they get out of control and that you work too hard to keep under control. Those parts you’ve tried to shake but just don’t seem able to do…

(Take time to reflect on the sheep and cattle that roam in your temple.)

Hear this, know this, Jesus is here to drive those things out of you. Jesus is here to clean your temple, and to make you clean.

Jesus also turns over the tables of the money changers. These people were there to change foreign money to Hebrew money that was acceptable in the temple, and to turn a tidy profit for themselves as they did so. In our lives, we do not always act fairly either. As you reflect on the whip that you hold, bring to mind those places in your life where you are not fair to others…

(Take time to reflect on those places where you are a money changer that treats others unfairly.)

Hear this, know this, Jesus is here to upset the ways in which you treat others unfairly, to turn over the tables on which you work your injustice, and to bring your temple into right relationship with others. 

Jesus tells those who sell doves, “Get these things out of here.” Doves were meant for the poor, an acceptable substitute sacrifice for those who could not afford something better. In our lives, there are many things that make us feel unworthy of God, or that we feel are unworthy to give to God. In other words, we feel poor in God’s sight and so we bring our doves, our substitute offering that marks us as poor to all who can see. As you reflect on your whip, bring to mind those places in your life that you feel poor in God’s sight, those places where you do not feel worthy, those places where you substitute something less when what you have is something more…

(Take time to reflect on where you feel poor in God’s eyes.)

Hear this, know this, Jesus is here to tell you get those things out of here, Jesus is here to tell you, you are enough, you have great things to give to him, you are richly blessed by the Holy Spirit.

As your temple is swept clean by Jesus, enjoy the openness, enjoy the peacefulness, enjoy the more easy connection you find there with God.

Amen

If you would like to explore this text as a family devotion, check out my post for Lent in a Dish 2021 on Family God Time: https://familygodtime.wordpress.com/2021/03/04/lent-in-a-dish-2021-week-3-jesus-and-the-temple-traders/

Cross and Suffering Meditation: Lent 2 2021

During the season of Lent, my husband, Pastor Patrick Sipes, will be our guest blogger with a series of tactile meditations exploring Sunday’s Gospel text. He is currently serving as the transitional minister at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in North Platte, Nebraska, and will be inviting congregation members into these meditations in worship. May God bless you as you explore Scripture through Prayer.

Items needed: a small cross, could be made of wood, ceramic, metal, or even paper. A cross you can trace and hold in your hand.

“Day 19” by redbettyblack on flickr.com

The Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Lent has Jesus instructing us to pick up our cross and follow him. These are some frightening instructions if you delve into them. They ask us to pick something up that will cause us suffering and death, but at the same time as Christians, we believe the death that happens there is also the source of new life and resurrection. However, this is a tall order. We are hardwired as human beings to avoid things that cause us pain be it physical, mental, or emotional. From some painful events in my own life that I refused to watch at the time, I learned that overcoming this aversion to pain and having a basic willingness to actually look at the suffering of others is the starting point of compassion. As a place of beginning to look at suffering, I choose to look at Jesus on the cross. I do so because I believe we find in Jesus all the suffering of the world united. Further, if I can begin to look at his suffering there, I have the strength to look at suffering in other places and the wisdom to see it as Jesus’ suffering as well.

As we begin our reflection today, I invite you to pick up your cross, as Jesus asked you to do, and hold it in your hand. With you finger or your thumb, begin to trace the cross from top to bottom and side to side, top to bottom and side to side. 

On this cross, if we dare to look, we will see Jesus suffering, but what’s more, as he promises us that we are in him and he is in us, his suffering is our suffering, and truly, in him is the suffering of the whole world. To look at a cross is to take the bold step of opening your eyes to seeing all those who suffer in the world.

If you are willing to look at this suffering, I invite you to take some time to look at your cross. As you do so, bring to mind the places where you know suffering to be in this world. It may be in your own body, or other places in your life. It may be in your neighborhood, or your place of work, it may be across town, across the state or across the world. Bring these places of suffering to mind, and then bring them to Jesus and to his cross. Take the time you need to bring to mind the places of suffering that you know of. As you do this, recognize how through the cross suffering is united. Notice that your suffering is the suffering of others, and their suffering is your own, and all of your suffering is united through Christ’s suffering. This can feel overwhelming at first but sit with it for a moment and what will begin to emerge is a deep knowing that what this really means is that through the cross you never suffer alone. Suffering wishes you to feel alone, suffering wishes you to feel disconnected from others and the world around you but through the cross we are never alone.

What’s more, for Christians, the cross is the way to new life, the death it brought Jesus was the way in which he defeated death. As you continue to hold your cross, as you continue to trace it, bring to mind where you are in need of new life. Bring to mind those places that might be feeling a little dead to you, those places that are looking like last year’s flowers dried out and dead through the winter. Take some time in your prayer to bring those things to Jesus. Tell him about them, place them in his hands, let go of them as you see fit, to one you trust such as him. And now the hard part…wait.

Wait and see what happens. But as you do, know that this is part of your prayer as well, that continuous sort of prayer that Paul talks about is embodied in your waiting, and coming full circle, in the suffering your waiting might cause you, know that Jesus is with you.

Amen

If you would like to explore this text as a family devotion, check out my post for Lent in a Dish 2021 on Family God Time: https://familygodtime.wordpress.com/2021/02/25/lent-in-a-dish-2021-week-2-following-jesus/

Wilderness Meditation: Lent 1 2021

During the season of Lent, my husband, Pastor Patrick Sipes, will be our guest blogger with a series of tactile meditations exploring Sunday’s Gospel text. He is currently serving as the transitional minister at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in North Platte, Nebraska, and will be inviting congregation members into these meditations in worship. May God bless you as you explore Scripture through Prayer.

Items needed: a bowl or dish and some decorative sand.

The following meditation is offered knowing full well that many of you have differing life circumstances. I encourage you to pray with it to the best of your ability in the moment you are praying with it. If you are an adult praying with children and find yourself wishing to spend more time on a certain section resist that temptation for the moment and  let the little child lead. Your goal in these moments is to meet them where they are at, let them play with the sand, let them answer a few questions and then move on. As for you, this does not mean your needs and your desires aren’t important, they are. If you have a desire to spend more time with this prayer, listen to that desire and then find time to come back to it by yourself of with a more mature partner at a later time. When you do, approach it with the intention of spending the time you desire. Find some music you like if that helps, pour yourself a relaxing beverage, and take all the time you can to pour yourself as deeply as you want, as long as you want and as often as you want into this time with Jesus.

As the season of Lent begins, we begin with a Gospel reading that tells us that Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. A place where St. Mark rather succinctly tells us that Jesus was tempted, that he lived with wild beasts surrounding him, and that the angels waited on him. My invitation for you is to enter the wilderness with Jesus and through this time of prayer and meditation, spend some time becoming aware of what is in your particular wilderness.

Take your bowl of sand and use it as a means of journeying into the wilderness with Jesus. You may find it helpful just to put your hands or fingers on the sand and feel it.  You might like picking the sand up and as you squeeze it or simply open your hand let it fall back into your bowl. You might use your sand to draw pictures which you can erase with a swipe of your hand or leave there to come back to later.  Or you might think of a different way of using your sand altogether, however you choose to use it, use it in a way that takes you into the wilderness with Jesus.

As you enter the wilderness with Jesus, begin to look for what is tempting you in your life at this moment. Our temptations often arise around those things we are unsatisfied with, or that we believe we deserve. We find them lurking in places where we think we can or where we would like to get away with something. We find temptation in things that are forbidden, or risky, or off limits because it feels exciting to us. With Jesus as your guide, take some time to explore where you are tempted. As you find a place where temptation dwells, spend some time looking more deeply into that temptation to see what motivation lies there. Talk about your temptation with Jesus, ask him what he might do to resist it, or reframe it so that something more in keeping with who you are may be what draws you in. Spend the time that you need looking at your temptations and when you are done continue exploring the wilderness with Jesus.

As you continue to explore the wilderness. Notice the wild beasts that surround you, notice those things or people in your life that seem to wish you harm, recognize what in your life is “eating you up.” Bring these concerns to Jesus. Talk with him about them, see what he has to offer about living with these wild beasts, or protecting yourself from them, or recognizing them as something harmless that you are just afraid of. Spend as much time as you need examining the wild beasts of your wilderness and when you are done, move on with Jesus.

The wilderness is an inhospitable place, but we are told while Jesus was there, the angels waited on him. As you are in the wilderness with Jesus, take time to recognize what angels are waiting on you. Who is supporting you in your life? Who is providing what you need? Who is offering you help when you need it? These are angels. Take some time to share with Jesus who the angels are that are waiting on you, name them, name specifically what they do, and give thanks to Jesus for them.  Spend the time that you need to find the angels in your life, and as you are ready, bring this time of prayer to a close. Let go of any sand you are holding, brush it off of your fingers, clear any pictures you have drawn, or leave them if that feels more appropriate, and as you leave the sand in your bowl until the next time, we close with the word Amen, Yes, it shall be so.

Amen

If you would like to explore this text as a family devotion, check out my post for Lent in a Dish 2021 on Family God Time: https://familygodtime.wordpress.com/2021/02/15/lent-in-a-dish-2021-week-1-wilderness/