Dear Caldwell,
We wrapped up another year of the Elizabeth Communities of Faith Lenten Worship series this week. Our theme has been Crisis and the Cross.
What is the great crisis of our times? When she was in town Sunday night to speak at First Presbyterian Church, national faith commentator and journalist Krista Tippett offered her testimony that the great crisis of our time is the death of civility in America.
In her words, the question for these days is: What does it mean to be human in an era when all the major issues we thought were settled – questions of gender, marriage and human relationships in an era when technology is changing everything?
For her, the answers are that we are called to stand in the gap, to be bridge people, to stand for love and to ask good questions and listen for the humanity in the responses of our conversation partner.
As we approach Palm Sunday and Holy Week, we might alter Tippet’s question a tad and ask: What does it mean to be Christian?
Certainly her answers above are a good start on an answer to that question. But Lent and Holy Week push us to go further than just being “civil,” as important as that is. The days to come between now and Easter must cause us to declare that the CROSS was and is and always will be the great crisis of our times, that turning point when God in Christ turned to humanity once and for all, that turning point for each of us to turn to God once and for all with all we are and all we have to give.
One Holy Week tradition is our 24-hour prayer vigil starting after the Maundy Thursday service next week. It will be in the 24/7 prayer space. You can sign up for it here.
Watch for Caldwell This Week – and make note to the right of the full slate of Holy Week activities.
In Christ,
John