Continuing the Work of Jesus

To be Christ's friend is to sit with him on the last day
of his life - or on any day of our own - and to listen to him, sharing his hopes and fears, claiming his vision as your own and accepting his invitation of friendship.
- Barbara Brown Taylor

Once again this year on the Thursday evening before Easter we will gather to celebrate Love Feast. This service is a reenactment of the last supper - the Passover meal - Jesus celebrated with his disciples. It was one of his last teaching sessions with all of them. Recorded in John 13, here we discover the moment when Jesus calls his disciples friends. As he stooped and washed the disciples' feet, Jesus says to them, "I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing: but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."

Jesus wanted his friends with him that evening - not slaves, who follow his orders in fear; not servants who do their jobs and go home; but friends who will carry on his ministry, friends who will take on the joy and the risks of this ministry.

As the story unfolds we learn that one of Jesus' friends will betray him, one will deny him, some will desert him, others will stay close and watch him die on the cross, while still others will see to his burial. In the end, or perhaps the beginning, we realize that the friendship Jesus has with his disciples goes beyond his death, to a living presence that we celebrate on Easter.

As we continue our Lenten journey to Jerusalem we too will gather as friends of Jesus to share a meal, to wash feet (and hands), and to remember his life poured out in love as we break bread and drink the cup. Our service will take place Thursday, March 24 at 6:30 p.m. We will begin in the Fellowship Room and conclude with a Tenebrae observance in the sanctuary. Tenebrae, or "shadows" is a service of gospel readings where 12 candles representing those surrounding Jesus are extinguished.

It is from this meal that we are called to continue the work of Jesus - the work of loving one another, of serving one another, of forgiving one another, of living anew in the Spirit.
Friends of Jesus, you are invited to this feast of love once more. Come as a friend of Jesus, come and join your sisters and brothers in remembering his life and the call to continue his ministry.

Continuing the work of Jesus,

Bonnie

 

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