Have you ever been driving somewhere so familiar that you get lost in your own thoughts, and then suddenly—as if waking up from a dream—you look around and wonder for a moment where you are? I sometimes have the same reaction to Scripture and the church calendar. It becomes so routine—another Lent, another Holy Week—that I drive through on autopilot, going through the motions without really taking anything in.
But sometimes when I drive I have the opposite experience. I may be driving a familiar route, but something catches my eye that likely has always been there, yet it’s as if I’m seeing it for the first time. What a delight to discover something new and beautiful in the familiar!
I may be driving a familiar route, but something catches my eye that likely has always been there, yet it’s as if I’m seeing it for the first time. What a delight to discover something new and beautiful in the familiar!
My prayer for all of us is that we might journey through this season of Lent with fresh eyes. Instead of driving through on autopilot, we might take time to stop, get out of the car, walk around, and experience Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem as if it were our very first Lent and Easter. I pray that we might linger in Scripture and find ourselves in the story. Would we be selfish like Judas or, like Mary, willing to give everything to Jesus? Would we be like Peter, who denies knowing Jesus, or like John, who comforts Jesus’ mother at the foot of the cross? Would we be found among the Palm Sunday people shouting “Hosanna!” or in the Good Friday crowd demanding that Jesus be crucified?
I pray that the Holy Spirit might fill you with curiosity and wonder as you open Scripture so that you find meaning in the details we sometimes skip over. I pray that as you plan worship you may find ways to encourage that same curiosity and wonder in your communities. May you see the familiar in new and meaningful ways, and may those new insights blossom into new ways of doing and being that bring honor and glory to God.
This Lent, we invite you to journey through the familiar with the particular lens of servanthood and mission. Starting on page 7 you will find sample services from a series that puts servanthood at the heart of the gospel and at the nexus of our mission as Christ’s disciples. (The entire series can be found by searching by the title at ReformedWorship.org.) We also have included several other planning resources for Transfiguration Sunday, Lent, and Holy Week, plus articles to help us see and think anew.
This journey to Jerusalem is not an easy one. There are moments of delight, but also times of deep sorrow and intense pain. But if we go slowly enough, following the Spirit’s lead, we are sure to encounter the holy.