Abide – Diligence
Welcome everyone and welcome to Abide, a time where all of us practice pulling away from the everyday responsibilities and concerns, and we close the door, and we spend time with our Saviour. These 30 minutes are meant for us to re-center, to remember where we are anchored and rooted. And really just to sit and be still and know the love of God for us again. And so find your space, whether it's in a room on your own, or on a walk, in the car or wherever you may be, and just get settled in your body. We're going to take three breaths in and out, just to quiet things, quiet the mind, quiet the heart and the body. So you're going to inhale and follow your breath all the way in. Exhale, follow the breath out. And again, inhale. Follow the breath all the way in. Exhale, follow the breath out, slowing everything down. Last one: inhale, follow the breath. Exhale, follow the breath out. Beautiful.
I'm going to say a phrase and feel free to repeat it after me wherever you are. Be still and know I am God. Be still and know I am. Be still and know. Be still. Be.
In the stillness, just be reminded that God's loving gaze rests on you. And in this time of gratitude, let us look over the last few hours and days and notice the small and insignificant things, or seemingly insignificant, that God might be wanting to use as gestures of love and care. So these will be hard to see, kind of like when Jesus saw the widow, the woman putting in that small coin. What are some of those small coins? That are in your day, that are in your life, where God is leaning in with his love and his attention to you and his care. Who are the people? What are the words, the gestures and the faces, of how God might be extending his love to you?
Wonderful. It's so good for us to practice just slowing everything down so that we have a moment to see, a moment to taste, a moment to feel this life that surrounds us, these people that are woven into our lives. So that we don't just skim across the surface of our daily, but we actually experience it. And as we connect with our Creator in gratitude, it's out of this love and gratitude that we desire to cultivate these virtues, these ways in which God designed our bodies and minds and hearts to work. If we put ourselves under God's teaching and His way that He designed us, that these virtues will begin to flow as they're practiced.
And today's virtue is diligence. It comes from the Latin word that once meant to single out or to value highly, to esteem, to prize, to love, and then it later came to mean attentiveness and carefulness. And this is all from Karen Swallow Prior, who we've been enjoying her writings, and one usually puts care and attention into what one loves and esteems and values. And today's definition is a steady, persistent effort. So you're starting to get a sense of this diligence, a steady persistent effort towards something that someone cares for, or loves, prizes.
And so the opposite of diligence would be sloth: to lack effort at all and to lack care at all.
I'm going to invite us all to think over our lives in where is a place that we notice we, we have been given that, this gift of diligence, we’ve worked hard and carefully and well and something has formed or been created because of this diligence. Maybe you've been very diligent within your sport or within music, or within your studies or reading. Maybe you're diligent in caring for your space and it's clean and tidy. Maybe you're diligent in caring for your body and how it gets rest and activity and rest again. So just spend some time with Jesus now, over your life, where this virtue of diligence has been tasted and experienced and seen and fleshed out in your life, where have you highly esteemed something, prized it, loved it, and had a careful attention, and a steady, persistent effort in something in your life. So take time to just enjoy that with Jesus now.
Wonderful. You know, Karen Swallow Prior describes diligence as actually the most humble of virtues, and perhaps even the most boring virtue, as it’s very humdrum. It doesn't get as much attention as maybe love or peace or hope. And today, we want to bring about this diligence in places that are more challenging for us to remain diligent. Maybe it's challenging for us to remain diligent in our connection to God, or maybe the relationships we’re in, or maybe just daily habits. And so today's scriptures, because of the season we're in, which is the season of Lent, a time period of 40 days that leads us up to Easter of Christ's death and resurrection, I sense that Jesus embodies this diligence, embodies this steady, persistent effort. And you know, he singled out and highly valued us. And this is his focus in how he continues to be diligent, in how he lives and makes choices and remains steady. And so we're going to go through the actual 14 Stages of the Cross today. If you've ever been able to walk those in the Tyndale Chapel, you'll notice they're carved out of marble, or maybe you've seen them elsewhere. So today I will read Scripture for each station and then pause. And so we will be diligent in walking through these stages these stations. And then we'll allow these Scriptures to commune with us in the places of our life that are harder and more challenging to remain diligent, to remain steady. Let us come under Jesus’ example and the word of God together.
We will introduce the Stations of the Cross with Matthew 16:21-24:
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
So in these Scriptures, we will see how Jesus denies himself and takes up his cross. And allow this to be an invitation for us to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily.
Station 1: Jesus is condemned. A reading from Mark 15:1-15:
Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, and they led him away and handed [him] over to Pilate.
“Are you the king of the Jews? “asked Pilate.
“You have said so,” Jesus replied.
The chief priests accused him of many things. So again Pilate asked him, “Aren't you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”
But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.
Now it was the custom at the festival to release a prisoner whom the people requested. A man named Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.
“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, knowing it was out of self-interest that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.
“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.
“Crucify him!” they shouted.
“Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.
Station 2: Jesus carries his cross. A reading from John 19:16-17.
Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull.
Station 3: Jesus falls for the first time. A reading from Psalm 37:23-24.
The Lord makes firm the steps
of the one who delights in him;
though he may stumble, he will not fall,
for the LORD upholds him with his hand.
Station 4: Jesus meets his mother. A reading from John 19:25-27.
Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
Station 5: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the cross. Matthew 27:32.
As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross.
Station 6: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 4:6.
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ.
Station 7: Jesus falls the second time. Isaiah 53:4-5.
Surely he took up our pain
and he bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
Station 8: Jesus meets the woman of Jerusalem. Luke 23:27-31.
A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then
“‘they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!”
and to the hills, “Cover us!”’
For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
Station 9: Jesus falls the third time. Isaiah 50:5-7.
The sovereign LORD has opened my ears;
I have not been rebellious,
I have not turned away.
I offered my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face
from mocking and spitting.
Because the sovereign LORD helps me,
I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
and I know I will not be put to shame.
Station 10: Jesus’ clothes are taken away. John 19:23-24.
When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.
“Let's not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let's decide by lot who will get it.”
This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said,
“They divided my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.”
So this is what the soldiers did.
Station 11: Crucifixion, Jesus is nailed to the cross. Luke 23:33-34.
When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
Station 12: Jesus dies on the cross. Luke 23:44-49.
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.” When all the people had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
Station 13: Jesus is taken down from the cross. Mark 15:42-45.
It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he said to him if Jesus had already died. When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph.
Station 14: Jesus is laid in the tomb. Mark 15:46-47.
So Joseph b[r]ought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. And then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.
And as where we started, we’re reminded of Jesus' words to the disciples: Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
Let us all just take this moment to rest in this diligent journey of Christ to the cross. Noticing the falls, the getting back up again. Noticing the helpers along the way. Noticing the waiting, the trusting. Give God once again that space in your life where you long to become more diligent, long to bring about more of a steady, consistent effort. Place that in Christ's hands, knowing he will help you. He will guide you and sustain you and strengthen you to become more diligent in picking up your cross daily.
We'll close with the prayer from Pray as You Go: “You have given all to me. To you, I return it. Everything is yours. Do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.” Go in peace, my friends.
