My Lord, My Love is Crucified!

Well, here we are.  It's Holy Week, and this has been a Lenten season unlike any other I have ever experienced.  I didn't do so well with the things I tried to "give up," but I tried some new devotional/prayer practices and kept up with these expanded ways of being with God pretty faithfully. 

If you have been following my blog, you already know that pictures/art have become an important part of my spirituality, especially since my time in the United Kingdom during my sabbatical.  During Lent, I created a picture-prayer to match a designated word for two different Facebook pages, every single day.  Some of those were photographs taken in the here and now, pictures of ordinary things in my yard, my home, my office, my church.  Others came from as far back as my childhood and as recently as the past summer. 

It makes sense that visual art is a way of praying because we worship a God-made-flesh, a God who became touchable, tangible love and mercy and forgiveness in human form, a God who could be seen and felt, a God we still see and touch in the sacrament of Holy Communion, a God we ourselves make incarnate as the Body of Christ in the Church.

The above picture was taken this morning in my office as I randomly looked around my office for inspiration.  The objects are simple:  a small Celtic cross, a candle, and a miniature pottery vase.  I don't often get asked to anoint the sick, but I used to conduct a quarterly healing service at a former church. The little pottery container held the oil I used to make the sign of the cross on the heads of those who knelt before me in the flickering light of a candle. 

The link between healing and forgiveness is well established in scripture -- we see Jesus telling a paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven before directing him to take up his mat and walk, and the book of James instructs the elders of the church to pray over the sick, anoint them with oil, and confess their sins to one another in order that they may be healed. 

The climactic events of Holy Week encompass that connection between being healed and being forgiven when we speak of the desire for Jesus to heal our "sin-sick" souls, and many hymns have been written that speak not only of the pardon that comes from Christ on the cross but also the healing that flows from his sacrifice. 

Below is one of my favorite hymns, and it expresses this beautifully.  I invite you to read the words, pray the hymn, and perhaps even to sing it.  It is in the United Methodist Hymnal (page 287) and can be heard in various videos on youtube.com.  May you feel the depth of the love of the God-made-human whose love for us is beyond the power of words to tell.  May you feel in your heart "the blood applied." May you, too, feel the wonder and awe that "My Lord, my Love, is crucified!"

O Love divine, what hast thou done!
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father’s co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree.
Th’immortal God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Behold Him, all ye that pass by,
The bleeding Prince of life and peace,
Come sinners, see your Savior die,
And say, Was ever grief like His?
Come feel with me His blood applied:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Is crucified for me and you,
To bring us rebels near to God;
Believe, believe the record true,
We all are bought with Jesus’ blood.
Pardon for all flows from His side:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified.

Then let us sit beneath His cross,
And gladly catch the healing stream;
All things for Him account but loss,
And give up all our hearts to Him;
Of nothing think or speak beside,
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!  ~ Charles Wesley