Going through the motions by Kari Henkelmann Keyl

Ok, now we’re in deep. We’ve stepped through the Palm Sunday door into Holying Week. Or Holy Week, if you prefer. But there will be a lot of holying going on this week, I can assure you. Keep all your senses sharpened, and you may get in on it, too.

Like Heidi said last post, this all-important week for Christ-followers is a mysterious movement of time which is bookended by parties: the palm-waving-save-us hoopla of Palm Sunday and the power-of-death-defeated yesssss of Easter. So what goes on in between? It’s different for each person, of course. One common word might be EXPERIENCING.

Many worshiping communities will have an abundance of ways for people to experience the redeeming love of God in Jesus. Some may have a gathering every day. Many will have a Thursday-Friday-Saturday experience: three worship events that are linked together as one journey of faith.

Sometimes people bemoan the fact that going to these worship gatherings is “just going through the motions”. As in: is anything really HAPPENING, or are they just doing what they’re doing because that’s what they’ve always done?

Well, I’d like to revive this phrase, asking you to consider that “going through the motions” can be full of meaning. As in: something is TRULY HAPPENING. Like part of you is dying and something new is rising up in its place. Like God is busy… challenging, healing, holying, drawing you close. It might be beyond words or rational understanding, this movement that is happening, but something is going on.

Going through the motions might mean:
+ kneeling and saying I’m sorry
+ receiving a healing touch of forgiveness
+ having your feet washed by loving hands
+ listening to some engaging stories
+ being splashed by some water
+ taking into your body the bread and wine of Jesus’ life
+ hearing/singing some deeply-piercing music
+ watching as the worship space is eerily “stripped” of all finery
+ journeying up to the cross to feel its roughness, its pain, its healing

I encourage you to get together with others who will experience this dying-and-rising with you. But maybe your thing will be to find a quiet spot and do some reflecting on your own. Here’s a suggestion for your reflection:  the story of Jesus' gift of life according to Luke.
You could consider all the players in the drama, asking yourself which one(s) you most relate to. What happens to you inside, knowing that this Jesus, who taught and lived the message that no one is to be left out of God’s forgiving love, was found to be too threatening a force, a voice that needed to be silenced? And Jesus kept on challenging and loving, even when it got him headed toward execution. What does it mean for you, knowing that now that love he died to give us, is available to all?

Whatever are the motions you are engaged in these next few days, let the motions speak for themselves, while the message of Jesus’-life-given-for-you sinks in. Know that your understanding of the Cross might be very different from the person sitting next to you, or even the person who’s preaching. There are so many ways of experiencing God’s opening-up love and God’s brand-new life.

Go through the motions. Notice the motions of God. Take it all in. Work it all through in your own time, in your own way. Feel free to share here what you experience, what questions you have, what insights you’ve gained.

I’ll close with this poetry by Paul Gehhardt. I’ve always been intrigued by the question he asks, “What language shall I borrow?”, suggesting that the whole experience of receiving God’s redeeming love is truly beyond words:

What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend,
For this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?
Oh, make me thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never out-live my love to thee.

Peace and passion to you this Holy Week,
Kari