Lent: A Yearly Reminder of the Daily Call to Come Home is a series of seven writings that incorporate guided imagery, prayer, and questions to use in worship or in your small group.

Imagine

Our journey of Love will take unpredictable turns and lead to unexpected places. Some of these places we don't want to go, some of these places others don't want us to go.

Closing your eyes, imagine the landscape of this Way of Love you've been on, what do you picture? Now picture this road taking an unexpected turn. It seems to be heading in the opposite direction than the way you wanted or others expected you to go! Notice the responses provoked in you and others. What will you do?

Allow yourself to see Jesus still with you even as you question and some of your friends and the crowd who once blessed you begin to turn against you. What does Jesus say to you about continuing on? About your cost and loss on this journey?

Let the scene unfold for a few moments and then close with this prayer.

Pray

God, You work in ways that confound and confuse us. Your way of Love led to people shouting that you, Jesus, be killed even though they blessed you days before. Your way of Love led to the cross where you willingly gave up your life. You disrupt our expectations, especially of power. We pause to feel the disruption or give You permission to disrupt us.

(20 seconds or ~ of silence)

Will we still trust You even when our expectations of You and how our life is supposed to go get disrupted? Do we trust Your heart enough to willingly give up what we hold onto so tightly and place all, even our own lives into Your hands? And when we are left with only confusion and pain, questions and no answers, when we cannot feel Your presence, we ask that Your trustworthy hands hold us.
Amen.

Reflect

• Using Isaiah 52:15 as a lens through which to view Jesus' life and death, what had kings never seen or heard before? Ponder with them.
• Do you have a story in your own life or in the life of another in which following Jesus on the Way of Love cost you or the person deeply? What was the cost? Allow a prayer to be shaped by these memories.
• Much happened on that Friday and many were involved, pick one of these people or objects from the story in John 19:1-37: Pilate, crown of thorns, purple robe, chief priests, cross, soldiers, notice/sign, Jesus' clothes, jar of wine vinegar. In your mind's eye, become that person or thing. As that person or object, ask yourself: What is my function or role? What is my greatest fear? What is my greatest hope?

The complete series and audio are available here.