Way of the Cross - Station 2

SECOND STATION - Jesus takes up his Cross

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Reading:

So they took Jesus and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic, is called Golgotha.  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.  Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!                               John 19:17;  Isaiah 53:7;  Revelation 5:12

The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all:

For the transgression of my people was he stricken.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, whose beloved Son willingly endured the agony and shame of the cross for our redemption: Give us courage to take up our cross and follow him; who lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Pray for the Disabled and Those With Special Needs

Pray that they will be surrounded with loving friends and family; for steady refreshment of their hearts towards God; for physical stamina and healing; for endurance through chronic pain; for financial provision to cover the cost of therapy and special care; that they will know and display the love of God.

Lenten Prayer Walk - Introduction and Station 1

While the inaugural Lakewood Anglican Prayer Walk may not take place in the way we expected it to, we will still be holding it! Our original plan was to walk through Lakewood, stopping at various businesses and landmarks to participate in a Station of the Cross, as well as pray for a specific need of the city. Our congregation is spread throughout the greater Cleveland area, and while we may not be able to walk together physically, we are still able to walk together in prayer.

There are 14 Stations of the Cross, and 14 days between now and Good Friday. I ask that you pray 1 Station each day, beginning Saturday, March 28. The liturgy of each station only takes a few minutes to read through. After meditating on the station itself, there are also prayer prompts at the end of each station. Each prompt will ask you to contemplate and pray for a specific need in our community.

Weather permitting, I’d encourage you to consider taking a walk as you read and pray through these stations. We are a church of embodiment, and physically participating in the Stations as well as mentally can also be an act of devotion. I’ve found that walking through my neighborhood can reveal opportunities for prayer to me, and connect me to my community during a time of isolation.

I will be posting each Station’s text daily on the Lakewood Anglican blog. The introduction, and first Stations’s text, is below.

I’ll close with these words from Henri Nouwen, whose book “Walk With Jesus: Stations of the Cross” the Lakewood Fellowship has been studying this term. “Anyone who enters into communion with Jesus will receive the Spirit of truth – the Spirit who frees us from the compulsions and obsessions of our contemporary society, who makes us belong to God’s own inner life, and allows us to live in the world with open hearts and attentive minds. In communion with Jesus, we can hear the Spirit’s voice and journey far and wide, whether we are in prison or not. Because the truth – the true relationship, the true belonging – gives us the freedom that the powers of darkness cannot take away…Jesus’ death , instead of being the execution of a death sentence, became the way to the full truth, leading to full freedom.”

I hope that you will join us in this time of prayer and devotion as we prepare our hearts for Easter Sunday, and that even in our isolation we can be a community of hope for our broken world.

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THE WAY OF THE CROSS

 In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

We will glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ:

In whom is our salvation, our life and resurrection.

Let us pray.

 Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby you have given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

FIRST STATION - Jesus is condemned to death

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:

Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Reading: 

From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.  Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”  So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha.  Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover.  It was about the sixth hour.  He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!”  They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!”  Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?”  The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”  So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.                                             John 19:12-16

God did not spare his own Son:

But delivered him up for us all.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.  Amen.

Holy God,

Holy and Mighty,

Holy Immortal One,

Have mercy upon us.

Pray for Emergency Services and Systems of Justice

Pray for Godly wisdom and Christ-like integrity; for physical and emotional protection; for courage and blessing for their families. Pray that they will become agents of God’s hand to resist evil and bring an environment in which heaven’s justice can increase.

Sermon Reflection: Series on First Corinthians - Sermon #8 "Food, Idols, and The Greater Good"

At first glance this past Sunday’s Scriptures look to not apply to our lives today. We do not have temples to idols after all. It was a real problem in Corinth. Often times, temple festivals were holidays and the feast was thrown for the city. People would come to these festivals and for some it was the only time they ate meat because of its expense.

In addition to this, temples were the civic organizations of the day. You might go down to the temple of Hera to network with other business leaders. There were some Corinthians who thought (wrongly) that there was nothing wrong with eating meat sacrificed to other gods since they knew there was one God.

Saint Paul points out that their “knowledge” has hardened their hearts to their brothers (1 Cor. 8:11). Some new Christians who were raised pagan could not divorce the idea of idolatry from eating meat. Saint Paul makes the point that a Christian must not just care about the reality of eating meat sacrificed to idols (on which their thinking is in error by the way) but also a Christian must think about how his actions affect his brothers and sisters. While 1 Cor. 8:13 makes is clear that we cannot cause someone else to lose salvation, we never want to push someone down the path to apostasy out of hardness of heart.

To listen to the sermon from Sunday please visit here…
https://soundcloud.com/lakewood-anglican/9-9-18-series-on-first-corinthians-sermon-8-the-greater-good

Holy Week: Maundy Thursday

Read: Mark 14:12-23

The Passover with the Disciples

12 And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 13 And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, 14 and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” 16 And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.
17 And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. 18 And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” 19 They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” 20 He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. 21 For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
Institution of the Lord's Supper
22 And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

The Upper Room

The room in which Jesus and his disciples ate the Passover meal as his Last Supper is called both a “guest room” (Mark 14:14; Luke 22:11) and a “large upper room” (Mark 14:15; Luke 22:12). Most homes, whether large or small, typically had a room used to receive or entertain guests. Such rooms were located toward the front of the building so that guests need not enter the more private quarters of the home.

This particular guest room was a large room upstairs, likely with a view. From the description it seems Jesus’ meal was eaten in a large compound, perhaps similar to the mansions of wealthy people found in archaeological excavations in the southern part of the Old City of Jerusalem. These excavated mansions included large upper rooms decorated with frescoed walls and stuccoed ceilings and furnished with elegant tables and utensils.

A disputed church tradition dating to the fifth century AD places Jesus’ Last Supper in the Cenacle. This room is in a building located on the highest part of the hill that made up the southwest quarter of first-century Jerusalem. Today this location is called Mount Zion (not to be confused with the Mount Zion of David’s time) and is outside the Old City walls. A floor in this building, as well as a portion of its exterior southern wall, dates to Roman times, perhaps as early as the first century AD. Its “upper room,” a popular spot for pilgrims, is in the Gothic style and dates to a reconstruction in 1335. The same site is also associated with Pentecost and with David’s burial.
*Historical material from the ESV Study Bible Online

Meditation from Fr. Sean

Jesus and his disciples gather to celebrate Passover - the Feast Celebrating how God sent the angel of death to kill all the first-born children and livestock of the Egyptians in Exodus as a judgement and punishment for their enslavement of Israel. But the blood of a lamb was smeared on the door of the Jews and therefore the angel of death "passed over" them. (See Exodus 12 for more details.) Jesus takes this ancient rite of the Jews and completes it and refashions it. Rather than a lamb's body and blood he offers his own body and blood as the way to save those who believe in Him from death and eternal death - hell. This New Covenant's sign would be known as Holy Communion or The Lord's Supper. We celebrate it weekly to remember just how much Jesus loves us. The events of the following day would show that he meant what he said when he said, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). As we gather tonight at our Maundy Thursday Service at 7:30p.m. let us hold in mind all that this service means to us.

Let us Pray.
Almighty Father, whose most dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it in thankful remembrance of Jesus Christ our Savior, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.