Prayers & Readings from
Liberti Church’s Lent & Easter Prayerbook
Opening Prayer
My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
–from Psalm 121.2
~silence~
Scripture Reading
Luke 21.25-38 (msg) Continue reading
easter
Tuesday | Prayer & Readings for Holy Week (2019)
Prayers & Readings from
Liberti Church’s Lent & Easter Prayerbook
Opening Prayer
My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
–from Psalm 121.2
~silence~
Scripture Reading
Luke 21.1-19 (msg) Continue reading
Monday | Prayer & Readings for Holy Week (2019)
Prayers & Readings from
Liberti Church’s Lent & Easter Prayerbook
Opening Prayer
My help comes from the LORD,
who made heaven and earth.
–from Psalm 121.2
~silence~
Scripture Reading
Luke 19.29-48 (msg) Continue reading
Palm Sunday or, “Oh, the Glory, the Beauty, & the Tragedy of Being Human!”
This past Sunday was Palm Sunday, the Christian holiday that ushers in Holy Week. It celebrates the “triumphal entry” of Jesus into Jerusalem (Mk 11:1-11). In hindsight, though, this is one of the oddest “triumphal entries” one could imagine. It is the triumphal kick-off for what would be the death of the Son of God for the sins of the world.
Even now, millennia removed from the events of this week, we still wonder at how this all works. How does one person’s death–however good they are–account for every sin of every human in all of history?
It only begins to make some sort of sense when we acknowledge that this great exchange is not between to equals. Jesus, the Good and Innocent human, cannot merely be “another man” dying for another.
easter sunday // readings & meditation {2018)
Easter Sunday: he is risen indeed, alleluia
Scripture Reading:
Matthew 28.1-4
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
-silence-
These Days After Pentecost: On Law & Spirit
In the Christian Church Calendar, we are currently in a season that is numbered according to the Holy Day of Pentecost, the day we celebrate the Holy Spirit falling on the apostles fifty days after Jesus’ death (hence the name Penta-cost).
Jesus had told the disciples to go out into the world ministering this Gospel to the world, but first, to wait. What would be so important as to put the brakes on the mission of God in the world?
The Holy Spirit.
Continue reading
After the Final “No”, There Comes a “Yes” [Good Friday Sermon 2017]
I’m really looking forward to doing a happy sermon sometime soon. But alas, I find myself preaching on both Ash Wednesday and Good Friday this year–not the happiest of Church Holy Days.
And yet there is hope.
It’s fashionable to emphasize the narrative nature of God’s work in the world. And yes, it’s true–there is a progressive nature to Redemption, with a beginning, middle, and end.
But God’s work is also often cyclical, with certain rhythms and movements that return, repeat, and fold within one another.
I had this in mind as I went into this sermon. Yes, we ought to press into the darkness and doubt of the Cross without just quickly comforting ourselves with the Resurrection–we have to sit there for a bit–and yet the Church Calendar gets into our bones and souls to such an extent that it transforms the darkness. We can never sit in the Cross’ forsakenness without feeling the spiritual muscle memory of previous Easters gone by. And in that is hope.
This realization led me to largely do away with my notes (which you can find below) when giving this sermon and largely ad-lib, speaking from the heart as I wrestled with this stuff in real-time. The text selections came from Matthew 26-27, and here’s the sermon audio. Feel free to send me any thoughts, questions or concerns:
You can also download it here, or subscribe to our podcast. If reading is more your style, here are my notes for your perusal. Continue reading
Ascension: Our glory & the Bible’s hinge
Today in the Christian church calendar is Ascension Day, the day we celebrate Christ ascending into heaven 40 days after his resurrection and now sits at “the right hand of God the Father.” (You can read a prayer and poem I posted earlier for this Holy Day)
The Useless Ascension
The idea of “Ascension” doesn’t seem to get a lot of play nowadays in the Church. This, in spite of the fact that it is an essential part of all the Church’s earliest doctrinal formulations, and the subject of the most-quoted Old Testament verse in the New Testament:
The Lord says to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.”
Compared to other, non-creedal things like Hell, homosexuality, and “attacks on biblical authority”, the Ascension isn’t really talked about. Maybe this is because the Ascension isn’t really a “doctrine”–it’s an “event” and a “declaration”.
And we western Christians love our systematic “doctrines” that we can pick apart as nauseam and/or figure out how we can “apply it to our lives” in such a way that we can feel like we’re “good Christians.” But honestly, the Ascension doesn’t have many direct applications for today.
Continue reading
{Good Friday} | prayer & readings for Holy Week (2015)
prayers & readings from Liberti Church’s 2015 Lent & Easter Prayerbook
{click for more Lent Posts}
Worship
call to prayer
Be pleased, O God, to deliver us;
O LORD, make haste to help us!
– from Psalm 70:1
the Gloria Patri
Glory be to God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, so it is now,
and so it shall ever be, world without end.
Amen!
Continue reading
New Seminary Post: Holy Week Music & Readings on Death
I have a new post on the site Going to Seminary. I am putting up occasional posts giving different things to read around the interwebs, and this week focuses on Holy Week and its theme of death–Christ’s Death, Our Death, and Death conquered. I also give some classical music suggestions for this week (more Lent music suggestions here). I link to articles about a sister in Christ who recently died well, a New York Times piece about watching family die, and some writings by non-Christians about death. It ends with one of my favorite quotes ever. May these writings help you press into this time and our Savior all the more deeply.
Read the full post:
“Around the Web: Holy Week Edition“
Check out the rest of my Going To Seminary posts.
{Maundy thursday} | prayer & readings for Holy Week (2015)
prayers & readings from Liberti Church’s 2015 Lent & Easter Prayerbook
{click for more Lent Posts}
Worship
call to prayer
Be pleased, O God, to deliver us;
O LORD, make haste to help us!
– from Psalm 70:1
the Gloria Patri
Glory be to God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, so it is now,
and so it shall ever be, world without end.
Amen!
Continue reading
{wednesday} | prayer & readings for Holy Week (2015)
prayers & readings from Liberti Church’s 2015 Lent & Easter Prayerbook
{click for more Lent Posts}
Worship
call to prayer
Be pleased, O God, to deliver us;
O LORD, make haste to help us!
– from Psalm 70:1
the Gloria Patri
Glory be to God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, so it is now,
and so it shall ever be, world without end.
Amen!
Continue reading
{tuesday} | prayer & readings for Holy Week (2015)
prayers & readings from Liberti Church’s 2015 Lent & Easter Prayerbook
{click for more Lent Posts}
Worship
call to prayer
Be pleased, O God, to deliver us;
O LORD, make haste to help us!
– from Psalm 70:1
the Gloria Patri
Glory be to God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, so it is now,
and so it shall ever be, world without end.
Amen!
Continue reading
{monday} | prayer & readings for Holy Week (2015)
prayers & readings from Liberti Church’s 2015 Lent & Easter Prayerbook
{click for more Lent Posts}
Worship
call to prayer
Be pleased, O God, to deliver us;
O LORD, make haste to help us!
– from Psalm 70:1
the Gloria
Glory be to God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning, so it is now,
and so it shall ever be, world without end.
Amen!
Continue reading
Palm Sunday: “The Emperor Has No Clothes” [POEM]
I feel far, Lord.
But I know you’re here. I know it.
(Do I?)
(Can I?)
It’s the nature of the matter; a matter of nature, I suppose.
Perhaps only now I feel at the deepest existential depths:
“I believe! Help my unbelief!”
Or in a word: Hosanna
That cry. That plea.
The certainty of uncertainty.
The pregnancy of a pause.
The pondering of a moment.
That moment. The moment.
The moment that dressed my doubt in assurance.
But that emperor has no clothes
(or so everything says).
So where does my assurance lie?
Where do my feet stand?
My body pelted with rain, snow, and hail;
I pray my heart rests beside a fire,
drinking tea,
rocking in a chair,
my shoulders draped in that most costly of quilts –
my Rest.
Clothe me–
with the coat I lay on your path–
for this emperor is naked
and needs his King.
[read my other Holy Day poetry here]
all writings licensed: 
the long way home 