The voice of the prophets in Holy Week

Some short reflections from the prophets for Holy Week

Palm Sunday

Amos 5: ²³Take away from me the noise of your songs;

I will not listen to the melody of your harps. ²⁴But let justice roll down like waters,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream

It is not as if God's people do not know that justice is the preferred way.

Amos 9: ¹⁴I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,

and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,

and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.

God will restore, and restore properly. Not without pain, but through the very gift of his holy Son

Holy Monday

Obadiah 1: ²I will surely make you least among the nations;

you shall be utterly despised. ³Your proud heart has deceived you, you that live in the clefts of the rock, "> whose dwelling is in the heights. You say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’ ⁴Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down,

says the Lord.

How easily we misplace our trust.

Jonah 2: ⁷As my life was ebbing away,

I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. ⁸Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty. ⁹But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay.

Deliverance belongs to the Lord!’

I make a mistake when I think I am the source of justice and holiness.

Holy Tuesday

Micah 1: ³For lo, the Lord is coming out of his place,

and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. ⁴Then the mountains will melt under him and the valleys will burst open, like wax near the fire, like waters poured down a steep place. ⁵All this is for the transgression of Jacob

and for the sins of the house of Israel.

The Lord's will to deal with my sin is unremitting and determined. He will forgive me. He will have me, even if I am slow and unwilling to respond.

Holy Wednesday

Micah 4

In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, ² and many nations shall come and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

In hope, not desperation; in faith not in decline. I come to the Lord because he draws me to himself.

Maundy Thursday

Habbakuk 3

His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. ⁴The brightness was like the sun; rays came forth from his hand,

where his power lay hidden.

There is no way to overlook the glory of the Lord

Good Friday

Zephaniah 2

¹¹The Lord will be terrible against them; he will shrivel all the gods of the earth, and to him shall bow down, each in its place,

all the coasts and islands of the nations.

Everything that would wrongly demand our attention and our worship will be destroyed before Jesus, that we his sisters and brothers may live with the freedom and dignity that God destined us to share.

Holy Saturday-Easter Eve

Zephaniah 3

¹⁵The Lord has taken away the judgements against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;

you shall fear disaster no more. .

The Lord completes all that he sets out to complete

Beginning the journey again

There is more than abundance of Scripture to read during this season.We begin Holy Week on 28th March with Palm Sunday. The Liturgy of the Palms which is a prelude to the main liturgy of the day ( Luke 19:28-40;Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29) and read as part of a procession before the service begins. The Liturgy of the Passion involves the reading of the Passion Story according to Luke (Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 22:14-23:56 or Luke 23:1-49) Just take it slowly and read what you can /what you feel moved to but try to allow yourself to be drawn into the personal mystery of what God is doing for the world and in your life
Another Palm Sunday Homily is here

Is God so demanding that he will not stop until we are totally destroyed.
Sometimes it feels like that.
As Sunday begins with a "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem
we can spend time wondering what the nature of this event was
It is good to be accurate, but not good to nit-pick.
The truth is that the Gospels offer us variety in the accounts and insights of the last few days.
The Palm Sunday story is one full of hope and expectation
The Good Friday is one of confusion and desolation
The Easter story is one of excitement, uncertainty and expectation.

It is a journey to be travelled
we do not stand still
we are engaged powerfully
because this journey of hopeful expectation, of desolation and confusion
is exactly what our lives our like.
Whether it be our excitement at the birth of a child,
or our desolation when a child is miscarried.
Or a job that is exactly what we hoped for
but is cut short by a cancer diagnosis, or a debilitating car accident.
Even if it is only the hope that we have when we are young
that fails to be realised
when we are old

This is a journey that we all make

We are invited, too, by the Easter experience
to realise that dashed hopes, desolation and confusion
are only a step along the way
They are not the climax or the conclusion.
These stories fill us with a sense of excitement, challenge and expectation
that we are entering uncharted waters.

scrutiny
as we look at our life
where is the sense of hopefulness.
What do we long for, what fulfillment do we seek?
This is Palm Sunday.
We don't need to anticipate Good Friday yet.
What do we believe God is trying to do in our life
what do we want God to do?
What sense of excitement, hope, fear
do we note as we sense what God might have in store for us?
What encourages us forward,
what holds us back.

Allow this week to be a time of challenge and exploration
as we permit God to show us more of what there is in store for us
and pray for grace to respond.

Beginning the journey

There is more than abundance of Scripture to read during this season.We begin Holy Week on 28th March with Palm Sunday. The Liturgy of the Palms which is a prelude to the main liturgy of the day ( Luke 19:28-40;Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29) and read as part of a procession before the service begins. The Liturgy of the Passion involves the reading of the Passion Story according to Luke (Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 22:14-23:56 or Luke 23:1-49) Just take it slowly and read what you can /what you feel moved to but try to allow yourself to be drawn into the personal mystery of what God is doing for the world and in your life
Another Palm Sunday Homily is here

Is God so demanding that he will not stop until we are totally destroyed.
Sometimes it feels like that.
As Sunday begins with a "triumphal entry" into Jerusalem
we can spend time wondering what the nature of this event was
It is good to be accurate, but not good to nit-pick.
The truth is that the Gospels offer us variety in the accounts and insights of the last few days.
The Palm Sunday story is one full of hope and expectation
The Good Friday is one of confusion and desolation
The Easter story is one of excitement, uncertainty and expectation.

It is a journey to be travelled
we do not stand still
we are engaged powerfully
because this journey of hopeful expectation, of desolation and confusion
is exactly what our lives our like.
Whether it be our excitement at the birth of a child,
or our desolation when a child is miscarried.
Or a job that is exactly what we hoped for
but is cut short by a cancer diagnosis, or a debilitating car accident.
Even if it is only the hope that we have when we are young
that fails to be realised
when we are old

This is a journey that we all make

We are invited, too, by the Easter experience
to realise that dashed hopes, desolation and confusion
are only a step along the way
They are not the climax or the conclusion.
These stories fill us with a sense of excitement, challenge and expectation
that we are entering uncharted waters.

scrutiny
as we look at our life
where is the sense of hopefulness.
What do we long for, what fulfillment do we seek?
This is Palm Sunday.
We don't need to anticipate Good Friday yet.
What do we believe God is trying to do in our life
what do we want God to do?
What sense of excitement, hope, fear
do we note as we sense what God might have in store for us?
What encourages us forward,
what holds us back.

Allow this week to be a time of challenge and exploration
as we permit God to show us more of what there is in store for us
and pray for grace to respond.