Lanterns in the Garden/Holy Week Labyrinth: Pray that you will not give in to temptation

Your word is a lantern to my feet
 and a light to my path.

 Psalm 119:105

This week we are moving forward considerably.  We have been on a journey through the desert "testing" with Jesus over that last few weeks of Lent.  This week we struggle with Jesus in a different place.  We move from the struggles of the wilderness desert to the struggles of his Garden "desert" on the Mount of Olives.  We'll look at his exchanges with the disciples and his prayers to God and we'll walk the labyrinth.      Do you have easy access to a Labyrinth that you could walk?   If not, you can take this Link to a finger Labyrinth that you can download and print: PDF File/Labyrinth.  If you prefer, here is a link to an online virtual labyrinth.  

There are a couple of links I find between the struggles Jesus has in the desert and in the garden.  We witness his amazing sense of overcoming temptation/testing and his "surrender."  His desert struggles signal his surrender to the beginning of his ministry and his declaration that he worships only God and he serves only God.  In the garden, as he prays we can see that as he faces death he is surrendering his human will in order to fulfill the will of God.  I see another "link" in Luke's gospel when the Angel comes to strengthen Jesus.  

Jesus is at the beginning of the end of his ministry on earth.  In a way, he gives us new "Lanterns in the Desert."   He is facing death and he fulfills in a powerful way worshiping and serving only God.  This is so hard.  Everyday we make this choice ... do I serve myself and my desires today OR do I serve God and God's desires?

Take a few moments to think about your life and your desire to have your own way with your life.  Have there been moments lately when you have felt the desire to pray but have not found the time to do so?  Has there been someone you know you should reach out to but have been afraid or reluctant to engage?   How do you worship God?  How do you serve God?  How is your worship of God manifested in the ways you are serving God?

When you are ready to move into the text, settle into a place of loving openness within yourself with a simple Breath Prayer.  Use this one or allow one to emerge as you breathe in and breathe out for 5-10 minutes.

Breathing in ... Jesus, my Lord and my Savior
Breathing out ... Help me to focus only on God

Pray: Holy God, your Word is my light and my lantern!  Sometimes I struggle with the "only" part of what you are calling me to.  Somehow I think I can have it all but I know that I can't, not really.  Help me to accept my struggles as a chance to grow closer to you.  Amen.  

Jesus carries Jewish scripture in his heart to light his path.    Today we take the words of Jesus and let them shine on our own path.  Allow yourself to be drawn deeply into God’s Presence as you read and pray and listen for the whispers of God through the text.  "Read" Luke 22:39-46 (NET) slowly.  Imagine yourself as one of the disciples, sleeping but not really, more filled with grief and despair.  Allow your awareness to emerge as you read.  What do you hear?  What do you see?  How are your senses attuned to what is unfolding as you "visualize" the scene in the Garden at the Mount of Olives?

Then Jesus went out and made his way, as he customarily did, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. When he came to the place, he said to them, 

“Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” 

He went away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, 

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. 

Yet not my will but yours be done.” 

[Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.] When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, exhausted from grief. So he said to them, 

“Why are you sleeping? 

Get up and pray that you will not fall into temptation!”

Read the passage again.  Is there a word or phrase that captures your attention as you read?  It may even be an image that will emerge for you. Perhaps this word or phrase or image will shine light into your life.   Let it illuminate your life as you walk the labyrinth and "Reflect" on what you are hearing. 

When you are on your way, turn your word or phrase or image over in your mind. Let God speak into your heart as you listen.  Take time to "Release" anything that emerges that you need to let go of in order to move on in your prayers.

Come to a time of pause … at the center of the Labyrinth or wherever you are.  Take time to "Receive" and welcome God's word for you. Consider these questions or others that may arise in your time of pause:  Where is God speaking into my nagging desire to worship little gods in my life ... through my word, phrase, or image?  How is God inviting me to turn toward Jesus?  How is my life touched by the word of God today?

 
As you walk or move out of the center along the same path you took that brought you to your pause, know that you are gaining strength for your continuing journey of life.  How is God inviting me to focus on worship and service?  How is God calling me to pray more fervently?  As you walk, take the time to "Respond" to God ... it doesn't have to be in words, it may be in a body prayer or in simple silence or ... however it seems right to you!

As you reach the end of the Labyrinth pathway, it is time to "Rest" in the silence of God's Presence.  Allow God to light your lantern in the desert with simplicity and healing grace.

Simply BE with the God who always hears your prayers.

Be aware that you may find a desire to express what you have received.  This is a wonderful time to journal.  Write about your experience, thoughts, feelings, and insights.   Some persons find that God’s voice is clarified through the writing process.

To end your time of Labyrinth Prayer, stand at the edge of the Labyrinth and read/speak Psalm 22 ... for it is another Lantern in your Life !  Jesus cried out with the first words from this psalm from the cross.  Because Jesus was steeped in the Scripture, we know he had the entire psalm in his heart.   It was a lament in his death but as you read further, you also see the trust and the single-minded focus on God's provision.  Breathe in the poignant beauty as you pray Psalm 22 with Jesus.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
I groan in prayer, but help seems far away.
My God, I cry out during the day,
but you do not answer,
and during the night my prayers do not let up.
You are holy;
you sit as king receiving the praises of Israel.
In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted in you and you rescued them.
To you they cried out, and they were saved;
in you they trusted 

and they were not disappointed.
But I am a worm, not a man;
people insult me and despise me.
All who see me taunt me;
they mock me and shake their heads.
They say,
“Commit yourself to the Lord!
Let the Lord rescue him!
Let the Lord deliver him, for he delights in him.”
Yes, you are the one who brought me out from the womb
and made me feel secure on my mother’s breasts.
I have been dependent on you since birth;
from the time I came out of my mother’s womb 

you have been my God.
Do not remain far away from me,
for trouble is near and I have no one to help me.
Many bulls surround me;
powerful bulls of Bashan hem me in.
They open their mouths to devour me
like a roaring lion that rips its prey.
My strength drains away like water;
all my bones are dislocated;
my heart is like wax;
it melts away inside me.
The roof of my mouth is as dry as a piece of pottery;
my tongue sticks to my gums.
You set me in the dust of death.
Yes, wild dogs surround me—
a gang of evil men crowd around me;
like a lion they pin my hands and feet.
I can count all my bones;
my enemies are gloating over me in triumph.
They are dividing up my clothes among themselves;
they are rolling dice for my garments.
But you, O Lord, do not remain far away!
You are my source of strength! Hurry and help me!
Deliver me from the sword!
Save my life from the claws of the wild dogs!
Rescue me from the mouth of the lion,
and from the horns of the wild oxen!
You have answered me!
I will declare your name to my countrymen!
In the middle of the assembly I will praise you!
You loyal followers of the Lord, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
All you descendants of Israel, stand in awe of him!
For he did not despise 

or detest the suffering of the oppressed;
he did not ignore him;
when he cried out to him, he responded.
You are the reason I offer praise in the great assembly;
I will fulfill my promises 

before the Lord’s loyal followers.
Let the oppressed eat and be filled!
Let those who seek his help praise the Lord!
May you live forever!
Let all the people of the earth 

acknowledge the Lord and turn to him!
Let all the nations worship you!
For the Lord is king
and rules over the nations.
All of the thriving people of the earth 

will join the celebration and worship;
all those who are descending into the grave 

will bow before him,
including those who cannot preserve their lives.
A whole generation will serve him;
they will tell the next generation 

about the sovereign Lord.
They will come and tell about his saving deeds;
they will tell a future generation 

what he has accomplished.

Amen ... 

If art is a pathway to God for you, you may want to gaze upon the image below and engage in Visio Divina with it...  

By Carl Heinrich Bloch (http://freechristimages.org) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Read the Image ... Allow your eyes to seek softly what you are attracted to in the image.  Simply receive the gift of seeing.  What image within the image is drawing you in ... Allow yourself a few moments simply to sit with this gift.

Receive the Image ... Take a deep breath and gaze with soft eyes and a receptive spirit.  After receiving, close your eyes and reflect by allowing your imagination to form that image in your consciousness ... what are you receiving from God through the image?  How does this illuminate your life right now?

Respond to God ... Now take a deep breath and gaze with soft eyes and a grateful spirit.  How do you sense yourself desiring to respond to God through the image you have received?  What would you say to God about what you are hearing, seeing, feeling?  Allow yourself to pray with gratitude ...

Rest in God ... Now take a deep breath and rest ... notice how your body feels.  Is there something more here?  Then go back and repeat your "gazing" prayer.   If you feel that you have received all you need in this moment, simply rest in the silence and come to a place of shalom, peace, wholeness ...

To end your time of Visio Divina ... Join Jesus in lifting up his Lantern in the Desert:

“Pray that you will not give in to temptation.”

Psalm 22: My God, My God

Psalm 22       To the leader: according to The Deer of the Dawn. A Psalm of David.

1)    1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
          Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?  
       2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.
       3 Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. 
       4 In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.
       5 To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.
2)    6 But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people.
       7 All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;
       8 ‘Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
           let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’
       9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
      10 On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
      11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.
      12 Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
      13 they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion.
      14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; 
           my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast;
      15 my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; 
           you lay me in the dust of death.
      16 For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me.  
           My hands and feet have shriveled;
      17 I can count all my bones.  They stare and gloat over me;
      18 they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.
3)   19 But you, O Lord, do not be far away!  O my help, come quickly to my aid!
      20 Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog!   
      21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!
           From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me.  
      22 I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters;
           in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:  
      23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!
           All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
      24 For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted;
           he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.
4)   25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation; 
           my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
      26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord.  
           May your hearts live forever!
      27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord;
           and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.
5)   28 For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.
      29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
            before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
      30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord,
      31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.

Context:  Psalm 22 is an excellent example of a lament.  In Week 5, we studied Psalm 80 and learned that a lament is a feeling or an expression of grief with a 5-fold structure:  1) Call, 2) Description of trouble, 3) Plea for God to respond, 4) Statement of trust that God is listening, and finally a 5) Vow or expression of praise.   You can see a rough outline of the way I see this 5 fold-structure in Psalm 22.   This ancient lament was used by Jewish people seeking deliverance.

Psalm 80 was a communal lament, arising from the deep communal suffering of exile whereas this week’s Psalm 22 is an individual lament.  It has been attributed to King David who certainly had several occasions to express the sense of abandonment that permeates the first lines of this psalm.  David suffered intense scrutiny and condemnation in his relationships with Saul and his family in later years.  Those who are closest to us are often the ones who hurt us the most. 

Yet, once again we see the heart of one who has a deep relationship with God and a faith that surely must be strengthened by the brutally honest expression of his darkest feelings and the processing that carries him through to the confidence of deliverance, perhaps not today, perhaps not for our psalmist … but one day for God’s people!

Going Deeper:  Psalm 22 is also known as a Messianic psalm.  Christians believe it foreshadows the suffering and death of Christ in a way that no other passage of Scripture does.  Christians read Psalm 22 on Good Friday.  Good Friday is the most obviously dark day of the year for those of us who are Christ followers as we grieve with those first disciples.   Surely they must have felt abandoned by Jesus as he felt abandoned by God.  We remember the lament of Jesus as he gives his life out of an enormous love for humanity... for you and for me and for all… and we join his lament with a heavy heart on Good Friday.  

The Gospel writer Mark tells us that “At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah.’ And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’ Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’”   

Even though we have illusions that Jesus, who was fully divine, was always connected to the Father (John 10:30 the Father and I are one) and surely felt the Spirit at all times … perhaps because he was also fully human, he did experience “disconnection” and perhaps it was in this moment.  Surely this was an honest cry coming from the depths of the soul!  That means God knows how I feel in my darkest hour!   Have you ever felt the kind of abandonment that emerges in the words of the psalmist and from the heart of Jesus?   What were your circumstances?  Who in your life has deserted or betrayed you?  What other emotions were churning around in the depths of your despair?  What were your feelings toward God? 

Read Psalm 22.  What verses remind you of Jesus as he suffered on the cross?   Read Mark 15:24-32, “And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take.  It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’ And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left.  Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!’ In the same way the chief priests, along with the scribes, were also mocking him among themselves and saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.’ Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.”  Look at verses 7, 8, and 18 of Psalm 22.  Where do you see echoes of this psalm in these Markan verses?  What does that say to you about the relationship between psalm & gospel?  

As I have lived and breathed through the psalms this summer, I have found that Jesus also lived and breathed the psalms.   As Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I hear not just the words that are spoken. I hear the intent and the fullness of the psalm.  I hear the culmination of the journey …the anticipation of resurrection.  I hear Jesus as he joins the psalmist and the communion of saints praising God and expressing deep faith in a time of despair and death, “we shall live for God!” (See Verse 29)   Think again of your own time of abandonment.  How did you process through your experience?  When were you able to praise God?  Have you been able to proclaim, “I shall live for God!...”? 

Pondering:  Read Mark 15:34-39 (see the first bold print passage above) out loud and slowly … this is the passage of Scripture in which Jesus quotes Psalm 22 … Alternatively you could use the 5-fold structure (see the first “context” paragraph) to allow a psalm of lament to emerge from your own life and circumstances as you practice lectio divina on your own writings.  

Lectio=Listen to the words. Read the words slowly, repeating them again and again, allowing them to linger on the tongue, savoring their beauty ...

Meditatio=Prayerfully listen as you read until a small portion of the psalm (a word or a thought or a phrase) begins to draw you deep within.  Turn your “portion” over and over in your mind and consider what God may be inviting you to think or feel or do or be … Write down what Spirit has given you so you can remember.  Stay with your “portion” and commit it to memory as your thought for the day …

Praying:  
Oratio=Spend some time in prayer responding to God’s invitation … allow prayers of confession, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, praise, or ... to emerge in this time you are spending with God.

Contemplatio=When you runs out of words to say, simply rest in the presence of God, lingering with God in loving companionship … Amen!

Here is a youtube video of Psalm 22 put to music ...