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The Week That Changed Everything · Infinitely Precious

• 0:00
  Intro: Welcome to the infinitely precious podcast produced by infinitely precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.
• 0:12
  James: Hello, beloved. It's me, James, and this is another opportunity for us to reflect together, to think about things. As you know, I usually see what is arising in me, what seems pertinent to the times we find ourselves in, or perhaps tie it into something along the lines of our journey of faith and where that is. You can always suggest a topic if you'd like to to me and I would love to hear suggestions. Infinitelypreciousllcgmail dot com is a great way to reach me for this which is a podcast and or a broadcast that goes out on several social media platforms.
• 1:06
  So I'm always interested in your thoughts, your reflections and anything I can do to perhaps help you on this journey along the way. And perhaps, you're sharing your reflections will do the same for me. So, I encourage you, email me if you wish. This is for us as people who follow the path of Jesus what is traditionally known as Holy Week. We are in the Tuesday of Holy Week.
• 1:38
  Holy Week begins with this past Sunday which is Palm Passion Sunday, focuses on the palms, the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The weekdays end with Good Friday and the crucifixion. And then after a day of sort of silent waiting, Easter morning is celebrates resurrection. So one of the things that Holy Week can be for us is kind of a reflection of where we are finding ourselves in our journey of faith right now. And you might say to yourself, well, that's isn't that what Lent has been all about?
• 2:28
  Yes, yes it has. However, when you think about what happens in Holy Week, there are very specific each of the days of the week kind of represents something that happened in that final passion week that Jesus lived into. You may or may not know this, but in the gospel writings, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the preponderance of the writing, while it talks a lot about Jesus' life, a lot of it gets focused on those that last week, the passion week of Jesus. So I thought I might take each of the days, mention what each one of those days can represent or has traditionally represented in the church, and invite you to kind of take some time to reflect where you find yourself in this particular Holy Week. Now going back two days to Palm Sunday, Palm Passion Sunday, it's a day kind of a paradox.
• 3:46
  If you think about it, it's a day when there is a lot of praise for Jesus but also a misunderstanding of what Jesus is about. That triumphal entry can be we think of it of course as Jesus entering this passion. But in the first century, the people who would have laid down palms and received him as royalty, if you will, were anticipating that he would overthrow the oppressive Roman government and get rid of them. So there's all this praise and beauty and glory to God while at the same time a misunderstanding about what Jesus is really all about. He's not going to be that kind of king.
• 4:39
  So if you find yourself in a paradoxical place, a place of being challenged to try to understand who God is for you in your life right now, where Jesus fits in, how you can best remember and live into what Jesus is calling you to be. If you find yourself in that paradox, then Palm Sunday hits right home. Monday is the day when Jesus shows up, we tend to commemorate when Jesus shows up at the temple in Matthew, Mark and Luke and disrupts the commerce that takes place in the outer courts of the temple. Worship was tied up in making sacrifice in that first century Hebrew worship. And so there were people who would have to come in and exchange their Roman coins for temple coins so that they could then turn the temple coins into purchases of items to be sacrificed all the way from doves up to lambs, etc.
• 5:51
  That were sold there in the outer court. And as you might imagine, for those who were wealthy enough, it was not a big deal to make those purchases, but if you had traveled a great distance and were trying to reconcile with God, Jesus saw that as a place people were held back from truly experiencing what God was calling them to be and do. So there is the disruption and cleansing. What needs overturning in your life might be the question that Monday of Holy Week asks you. What needs overturning?
• 6:32
  Tuesday, there is a teaching and tension in Holy Week. You know, listening in the midst of rising resistance. In your life, you know, I don't know what's going on and what you might be trying to release or work through, but your life feels disrupted. And that is what sort of the Tuesday of Holy Week looks like. There is Jesus teaching and the tension that Jesus teaching is raising for the religious leaders, and the religious leaders are looking for a way to get Jesus, we are told over and over again because they feel like he is a threat for a variety of reasons that he is a threat.
• 7:28
  And as such, that he's teaching about love and hope and all sorts of other kinds of things and behind the scenes people who you would think would be on the side of those kinds of teachings are looking for a way to get rid of this guy who is threatening their way of life. Moving into Wednesday, perhaps you find yourself in the place where Jesus is anointed and there's kind of a fragrant, wasteful kind of love that happens where Jesus is recognized and anointed and everyone's like, you know that ointment was very expensive. It could have been sold to feed the poor. And Jesus actually says that this woman will be remembered, the one who anointed him because she honored me before face death. So maybe you find yourself looking for ways in a place in your life to be very extravagant in loving?
• 8:38
  Maybe that's the place you find yourself. How is the best way for you to be extravagant in loving? Thursday we move into the table, the towel. In the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, the focus is on that Last Supper. A group of disciples together, the people who have followed him and been on the road with him and who are for many of them anyway about to abandon, deny and betray him as he faces the next as he faces the uncertainty of the night.
• 9:15
  And as he sits with them, this is an intimate meal, a close meal. At the table is the denier as well as the betrayer and the abandoners as well. And maybe you see that tense place of being accepted at table known for who you are, loved for who you are, accepted for who you are because Jesus sees all the disciples that way in that night. It's also a reminder of service. In the Gospel of John, the focus of that last meal is the washing of feet where Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and that idea of the towel as a representative of service.
• 9:59
  Are you looking for ways to serve? Are you at a place in your life where you find yourself serving and feeling called to serve and living into service? Are you looking for a place at the table? Or have you found that place at the table as the disciples had? That's a question for Thursday.
• 10:20
  Friday. Perhaps you find yourself suffering. Friday is the day of the cross, the crucifixion. We traditionally call it Good Friday and oftentimes I grew up in a church, the Protestant church traditionally skips a Good Friday service. We move right from Palm Sunday in the celebration of Jesus entry, triumphal entry into Jerusalem straight into Easter.
• 10:46
  But I wonder if you are in a place of suffering and struggle in your life, if you might find yourself in a Good Friday place because there is a place for that. And suffering is a part of being alive sometimes. And suffering is any time that things aren't going as you expected or anticipated. Suffering, I mean it can be very extreme, but it can also be as simple as your expectations that you have attached to life not working out the way you expected it. And as such, it can be a disruptive time.
• 11:26
  And Good Friday is an invitation to sit with that, not to rush through, but to sit with the suffering you're going through and recognizing it for what it is, for the suffering that it is. Not that you welcome it and think, wow, I'm so delighted suffering, but it's an invitation to be present in the suffering, not to run away from it. And Friday you might find yourself in that place. Saturday is the silence of grief and waiting. And those are all pieces of this week.
• 11:58
  Perhaps you find yourself in grief. I recently was with a family who lost unexpectedly a family member and grief is very real. It is very real. A couple of weeks ago, it looked like my dad could die at any moment and I was feeling a deep kind of grief and maybe that's the time of your life. Each one of those days is an invitation to be present with where you are right now.
• 12:27
  So where are you in this Holy Week story this year? Are you at that paradox of praise and not fully figuring out where Jesus fits in? Are you in the suffering of Good Friday? Are you in the disruption of trying to figure out what needs to be overturned in your life because you've become complacent. I don't know.
• 12:54
  Where do you find yourself? But it's worth taking a moment and seeing where you are. This week offers that invitation and I offer you that invitation. I offer myself that invitation this week to seek to be present. Perhaps your prayer for this week is Jesus walk with me, walk with us this week.
• 13:21
  Let us not turn away from whatever place we find ourselves in life as we look at your life as a reflection of ours in many ways. Remember always you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. Until the next time I wish you all the very best.