Ministries of Pastoral CareLent and Easter Archives

Category Archive: Lent and Easter

Jesus lives, and so do we!
Eastertide is a seven-week feast celebrating Christ’s resurrection. Christ is risen, and this present fact changes everything for those who look with eyes of faith. Observing this season is a transforming practice, one that will help us live out our baptism. Romans 6 shows the real, sacramental link between Easter and baptism — we were buried with Christ by baptism, and can now present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. As one Easter hymn proclaims, Jesus lives, and so do we. [1] Alleluia!
Pressing into our baptisms is an act of will, a choice we must practice. Christ is risen, and we wait for Him to come again. Until He returns we live in bodies and souls, families and communities where sin and death are no longer our master, but are still at work. Jesus has set us free from sin, but we must embrace that freedom. A wise friend of mine was recently reflecting on where she gets stuck: “I have the impression that I too often forget who I am.” Yes! You must remember your baptism, I must remember mine, and we must help each other live as baptized sons and daughters of God.
Men and women who fulfill their baptism consider themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ (Romans 6:11). Jesus calls us to live free of the curse, not granting it power or ceding hope. We wear His robe of righteousness and share in His incorruptibility. Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego image the baptized, fireproof in the hottest furnace. By virtue of baptism, we refuse to let sin reign in our bodies — it no longer has power to make us obey its groveling fear, its impatient rage, its survivalist impulses of contempt, apathy, and indulgence. We are empowered to offer ourselves wholly to God, presenting every aspect of our persons as instruments for righteousness.
This is no religious escape into faux perfection. We are transformed, and are continually being transformed. The baptized enjoy a freedom that scandalizes those under the dominion of death. We are fueled by a hope that seems foolhardy to the unconverted. Leanne Payne linked all wholeness to the waters of baptism: “Every conversion or restoration of the life of God in a soul, every liberation from darkness and despair, … every putting on of the righteousness of Christ” is a fulfilling of baptism. Christ’s cross signifies ”a baptismal, incarnational image of being in Christ, participating in both his death and his rising. It includes the reality of our participation in Christ’s obedience to the Father. These realities, absolutely unique to Christianity, are vital to keep before the mind and heart.” [2]
May these weeks of Easter be filled with rejoicing, feasting, and hymns of praise to our risen Lord.
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This joyful Eastertide, away with sin and sadness! 
Our Lord, the crucified, has filled our hearts with gladness.

My being shall rejoice secure within God’s keeping,
until the trumpet voice shall wake us from our sleeping.

Death’s waters lost their chill when Jesus crossed the river.
His love shall reach me still; his mercy is forever.

Had Christ, who once was slain, not burst his three-day prison, our faith would be in vain.
But now has Christ arisen, arisen, arisen, but now has Christ arisen. [3]
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[1] Jesus lives, and so do we, Christian Gellert, 1757.
[2] Leanne Payne, Heaven’s Calling (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 2008), 121.
[3] This Joyful Eastertide, George Woodward, 1894.
Painting: Glorious Mysteries I: The Resurrection of the Lord, St. Elizabeth of Portugal Church, photo credit Fr James Bradley from Southampton, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Radiant Lent
The lenten spirit in the Church is one of splendor and delight.
It breathes with the exhilaration of those girding up to ‘fight the good fight’
for the One who loves them and has given Himself to them
for the sake of their salvation.
hopko, The Lenten spring, 9
We have these forty days to follow Jesus into the desert. He invites us, calls us, and privileges us to fight for Him in a spiritual adventure. It is a spiritual achievement, one that takes great courage, skill and strength that we have only by His Spirit. In Lent we follow Christ on the radiant path that He has cleared before us.
We fight for Jesus, cultivating the character and lifestyle that honors Him. We fight against the devil and against our sin nature, refusing the lure of self-protection, self-serving, self-satisfaction, and self-aggrandizement. We fight for the good of our brother and sister, beloved enemy and stranger alike. We’ve been given some powerful and effective weapons that we practice wielding in this season: fasting; immersion in scripture and prayer; openly confessing sin to one another; giving of our personal resources to satisfy the needs of others; and actively loving those who offend or dishonor us.
Repentance and joy,
compunction and consolation,
godly grief and spiritual rejoicing
are joined together in perfect union in the person who fights for the Lord.
HOPKO, THE LENTEN SPRING, 15
Sometimes we follow the wrong guide into the desert, and these distortions of Lent can numb our desire to engage the season. On the one hand, we can turn it into self-improvement therapy, fasting to gain health benefits or changing a bad habit so we like ourselves more. On the other hand, we can punish ourselves with sentimental sorrow and misery as though this self-inflicted pain has some purifying power in itself. Both of these errors drop our gaze to ourselves when the real meaning of Lent comes from the horizon of eternity where glory awaits us.
I consider that our present sufferings
are not worth comparing
with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Romans 8:18 NIV
My heart sees truth in Rivière’s painting. Following Jesus to the desert requires humble resolve and a steadiness of will that can only come from Him. It is a rugged place with deep shadows, and we face a real and transforming battle there. Oh, what glory will soon dawn for those who remain with Him!
Painting: Briton Rivière, 1898, The Temptation in the Wilderness
Power to Repent
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing,
he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’
I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
The ax is already at the root of the trees,
and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
“I baptize you with water for repentance.
But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor,
gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Matt 3:1-2, 7-8, 11-12 NIV
John the Baptist really demolished that idea [that simply being a descendent of Abraham made a Jew safe in the life to come]: Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The Spirit of Power would be given — the Spirit who when He enters a man creates and brings the order of God where there has been disorder and chaos. He brings truth, divine certainty, knowledge of what to repent from, the power to repent. [1]
The warning words of John the Baptist confront careless and proud tendencies that would refuse the gift of a changed life. Repentance truly is a gift, and by it the Holy Spirit can accomplish purity in our hearts. In Lent we make an intentional effort to submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s creative inner work. We can trust God to shine a light where we need to change, and to marry His power to our weakness as we walk it out.
PRAYER
Come, Holy Spirit, bring order to our chaos. Empower us to welcome Your stirrings; pierce our hearts, loose tears, and grant us grace to let them keep falling until our hearts are cleansed. We renounce resignation to disorder. Descend into us, Refiner’s Fire.
Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1995), 239.
Painting: St. John the Forerunner, St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church, Dayton, Ohio [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Meditation prepared by Sarah Colyn, drawing on the writings and ministry of Leanne Payne.
Repentance and Resurrection
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:4, 10-11
In a city where I once lived, there was a quiet little chapel built to the side of the main sanctuary of a church. It had a wonderful crucifix over its altar, and above that an exquisite old stained-glass window depicting the risen Christ. I had learned to walk in the Spirit and knew the joy of the Lord. The ministry He entrusted me with, however, was growing rapidly. It was then that I learned to work into my life, as Agnes Sanford refers to it, a rhythm of repentance and resurrection. I was so busy serving the Lord and helping others that I usually had little or no conscious knowledge of sin and pride in my heart, but I learned to set aside a time to be very quiet, letting Him show me the repenting I needed to do, and the changes I needed to make in my life.
At these times, I would go to this little chapel and there look up to the crucifix. Then when I knew what to repent of, I would in prayer take my stand in His cross and with Him die to it. Sometimes this would take awhile. Having died once again with Him to the old man or self, I would (before rising from my knees!) look up to the stained-glass depiction of Him as risen Savior and take my place in His rising, all the while exulting in my forgiveness and true identity in Him.
I no longer have access to this wonderful little chapel, but this practice is firmly planted in my heart. All of us have access to Christ’s cross, and to build in such a rhythm of dying and rising with Christ is surely the way we stay spiritually and psychologically healthy. [1]
Whether we’re busy serving and helping, or caught in the cares and snares of the world, we need God to search and know us. In Lent the Church calls us to linger in the chapel of the heart, quieting ourselves under our Lord’s merciful gaze. He knows the perils of our journey intimately, and longs to cleanse and restore. Let’s give Him the time it takes to do this work, for our good and His glory.
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit. Help us walk in newness of life by showing us where we’ve gone astray. Strengthen us in these desert days that we might be still and welcome Your probing kindness. Lead us to repentance, merciful One. Reveal the subtle sins that our eyes can’t see. Give us grace to invite You in to the secret shame we hide from all others. Teach us this rhythm of dying and rising with You.
[1] Leanne Payne, Restoring the Christian Soul Through Healing Prayer (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1991), 63.
Resurrected Christ stained glass by Ott Freres, in a church in Gimbrett, France.
Stations of the Cross

Stay with me,
remain here with me;
watch and pray,
watch and pray.

We offer these scriptural stations of the cross
as a means to enter the “abyss of wonders” of the cross of Christ.
As you visit each station, take time for three movements:
Behold: Look upon each moment of your Lord’s journey with your true imagination.
Speak: Express the the cry of your heart that arises in response to Him.
Listen: Wait. Receive. Welcome the Holy Spirit to pray through you.
The journey of the cross may stir your heart in many ways. Some possibilities to watch for:
Identification
As we embrace the Lord’s identification with our suffering, we are healed.
His journey to the cross resonates with every human story,
for He truly took upon Himself the burdens of the guilty, the poor, and the powerless.
In these scenes we witness Him bearing all that would kill our souls and spirits:
betrayal, accusation, injustice, abandonment, torture, degradation, mockery, shame, violation, physical agony, bitter grief, utter weakness, and the chasm of death itself.
As He takes all the worst that evil can give, He has the victory.
In this journey He breaks the bondage of sin and death over our race,
and as we meditate on His cross today, its power is again let loose.
Grieving over sin
As we behold the Man, we may receive the gift of a broken heart.
Let it break, for this is a suitable day to weep over our sin,
the sin of our families, tribes, and nations, the sin of God’s people, and of the world.
We are free to confess as the Spirit leads,
“It was my sin that held Him there; it was our sin that held Him there.”
As we confess, we cry out for God’s mercy and forgiveness, for ourselves and for all.
Intercession for the poor
Through His perfect obedience and righteous sacrifice,
Christ continues to actively bear the pain that mankind could not and cannot escape.
As we behold the Man through these stations,
the Spirit may stir us to intercession.
The power of His cross is active today
for those preyed on by human evil,
for victims of systemic injustice,
for those living in material or spiritual poverty,
and for the persecuted Church.
Worshipping our crucified King
Good Friday stands at the center of history,
as the One who is lifted up draws all men to Him.
Behold Christ’s humility, courage, and mercy on scandalous display
as He entrusts Himself fully to His Father and pours out His very life.
Here we find a love we can trust, worship, and adore,
today and forever and ever.
What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest Friend,
for this, thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?
O make me thine forever; and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to thee.
Are you ready? Begin here with the first station.
If you’d like to circle back when finished and spend more time at a particular station, you can access them all here:
First Station: Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane
Second Station: Jesus betrayed by Judas and arrested
Third Station: Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin
Fourth Station: Jesus is denied by Peter
Fifth Station: Jesus is judged by Pilate
Sixth Station: Jesus is flogged and crowned with thorns
Seventh Station: Jesus carries the cross
Eighth Station: Simon helps Jesus carry his cross
Ninth Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
Tenth Station: Jesus is crucified
Eleventh Station: Jesus promises to remember thief
Twelfth Station: Jesus speaks with Mary and John
Thirteenth Station: Jesus dies on the cross
Fourteenth Station: Jesus is laid in the tomb

Painting: Rembrandt, 1634, Christ and His Disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane
True Repentance
To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant to the hands of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
till he has mercy on us.
Have mercy upon us, O Lord,
have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Psalm 123:1-3 ESV
In this introspective age, we easily substitute our subjective feelings about ourselves for the objective gift of God’s forgiveness. If we are on our knees, hating ourselves, we are not likely to look up and receive forgiveness. We have sunk into an inculcated, emotional state of feeling toward the self, an emotional view we’ve had so long we hardly notice it. And this is not prayer. It is a common and serious barrier to receiving the forgiving grace of God. [1]
Lent is a sober season, but also one that can yield great joy. We may resist a full embrace of Lent if diseased introspection is contaminating our confessional. An aversion to repentance grows where we’ve confused it with self-loathing and regretful ruminating over our weaknesses and mistakes. There is neither doom nor shame in true Christian repentance. As we lift our faces to the Father of all mercy, the restoration and freedom He gives scandalizes our self-hatred. Confessional prayer offered unto God ushers in a mysterious joy as we simultaneously face the heartbreaking extent of our need for Christ’s sacrifice, and the unfathomable depth of God’s kindness towards us.
PRAYER:
Come Holy Spirit, come. Search us and illuminate any way that introspection is corrupting our experience of repentance. Remove from our hearts any cruel judge or merciless punisher who blocks our view of You. Create a cleansed and kind space within where we can receive Your merciful illumination. Flood our hearts with Your love so they can be tenderly broken. We praise you for the objective reality of forgiveness that both transcends and descends to us.
[1] Leanne Payne, Restoring the Christian Soul Through Healing Prayer (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1991), 146.
Painting: Jacob Jordaens, 1623, An Apostle [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Meditation prepared by Sarah Colyn, drawing on the writings and ministry of Leanne Payne.
Come, Lord Jesus!
“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20
The oldest liturgical prayer that we know about is a command prayer, or prayer of invocation…
“Come, Lord Jesus!”
The early Christians must have shouted this prayer aloud with great fervor, knowing that He, their risen Lord, would by His Spirit be present to them in a most special way again…
Where the Presence of the Lord is truly invoked, there is little difficulty in believing on Him or moving in the spiritual power and authority He brings.[1]
How do we truly invoke His presence? In faith, yes, but not a whipped-up confidence in one’s enthusiasm or certainty. We invoke Him in humility, small ones welcoming the great I AM. Our call is born of hunger and dependence. Our prayer is worshipful, moved by awe and adoration. It is a loving reach in relationship, a bid toward Him who is with us. In this invocation we engage the mystery of ultimate reality, passing from explanation to Incarnation. We call on the One we have seen, touched and leaned against. And, we call on the One we apprehend only by belief, thanking Him for the inexplicable gift of faith. We learn this prayer by praying it, and just like His first disciples, we become as we look to Him, enabling those around us to do the same.
PRAYER
Come, Lord Jesus!
[1] Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1989), 49.
Painting: James Tissot, 1886, The Appearance of Christ at the Cenacle, [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons
Practicing the Presence
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering,
for he who promised is faithful.
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another,
and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Hebrews 10:23-25
After our Lord’s death and resurrection, the early Christians came together knowing that He would meet with them in a special way once again. Rather than going to church (their minds were not clouded with the notion that buildings or organizational structures were the Church), they came together as the Church to fellowship in His Presence.
And we might say they “practiced the Presence” in a number of ways or modes. “Christ has died, Christ is risen,” part of the earliest liturgy, was in some of their hearts an incredible *remembered* experience. Memories of lives shared together in the breaking of bread, in long journeys, and in the teaching of multitudes must have been vivid ones for many. Beyond memories of Christ’s presence, however, they knew by virtue of His Spirit descending on them at Pentecost that He was always present, indwelling them. In yet a third way, pertinent to what we are here considering, these early disciples knew that when they invoked Him, Christ would “come again” by His Spirit as they gathered to worship, hear the Word, and break bread (make Eucharist) together. [1]
Sharing in worship and the sacraments and journeying together as prayer partners are acts of faith in which we, like the early Christians, know our Lord will meet us. Pursuing fellowship with one another in Christ, we reject the consumer mindset and religious counterfeits for the sake of being encountered by the Risen One, the Objective Real. Persevering in His body is our joy and privilege, a blessed act of will by which we cultivate the virtue of hope.
PRAYER
Holy God, thank You for how You center Yourself in Your people. Thank you for Your dynamic, living Presence among us. Thank you for making Yourself known in the breaking of bread. Lord, I ask for an increase of faith that will empower me to live with joy and peaceful expectancy as a member of Your body. I invite You to illuminate any barriers, any unforgiveness or idolatry that is dulling my heart. Enable me to grow in maturity and freedom to celebrate Your risen Presence in Your Church.
[1] Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1989), 48.
Painting: 3^rdc., mural of agape feast from the Catacombe di Priscilla [Public domain].
Receiving Resurrection Life
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above,
where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Colossians 3:1-4 ESV
The way of the Cross stands always against the various ways man devises to earn his own salvation, his own ticket to the Utter East. And on that way we experience the ongoing efficacy of the Cross. We are being redeemed, and no static understanding of the reception of the Novitas or the Holy Spirit should bar us from continuing to receive. [1]
The Church celebrates Easter not just on one day, but with a seven-week season that calls us to rejoice in our risen Lord and His resurrection life. He is risen today, and we take our places in His resurrection right now, and again right now, and again right now. The newness of Christ’s life (novitas) is active here in His beloved world in this present moment, ours to appropriate and share. Confessing, “Christ is risen!” delivers us from the dual temptations of humanistic self-help on the one hand and cynical despair on the other. The stories of our redemption should be so much more than stale testimonies of some long-ago decision for Christ. Let us look in expectation and wonder as His Cross has its way in our lives today.
PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ, Redeemer of the world, I lift my eyes to You. I praise You in Your glorified body, seated at the right hand of the Father. I thank You that Your divine energy, Your resurrection power, is at work in me and through me. I confess that I need Your ongoing redemptive work within me and that I long to see redemption in the world around me. Strengthen me in the virtue of hope all through this Easter season as I proclaim that You are risen. Alleluia!

[1] Leanne Payne, Real Presence (Grand Rapids, Hamewith Books, 1995), p. 94
Painting: Rembrandt,1638, Christ and St Mary Magdalene at the Tomb. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Meditation prepared by Sarah Colyn, drawing on the books and ministry of Leanne Payne
In Babylon but of Christ
O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you,
I know you, and these know that you have sent me.
I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known,
that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
John 17:25-26
Lent is to remind us that it is all too easy to settle in here, to warn us that perhaps a “crippling wordliness” has indeed overtaken us…
This is what the Lenten Scripture readings and teachings are meant to correct in us. They would teach us how we can live in the midst of Babylon and not be destroyed by it, even as Christ prayed:
My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.
John 17:15-16 [1]
We are awesomely privileged people, chosen by God out of the world to be His. With this privilege comes responsibility: our loving Father keeps us in the world so that all may know His love for them. When we fear, follow, or join the world we lose our potency because we lose our oneness with God, His people, and our true selves. Lent is a needful, yearly gift. It is a time when we engage in disciplines that remind us of our not-of-this-world-ness. And it is a time when we invite the Holy Spirit to show us the ways the world has wooed us, cowed us, or numbed us. We kneel that we might rise in joy as those who are kept, guarded, sanctified and sent by Jesus.
PRAYER
Come Holy Spirit, illuminate my heart. Show me any accommodation I’ve made to the ways of this world. Search me and know me, merciful God. Where have I deceived myself, justifying that which draws me away from You? What habit, allegiance, or indulgence are you calling me out of that I might be one with You and my brothers and sisters in You? Lord, give me knowledge and power for full repentance. Let this Holy Week be a time of full return to You, that I may be a potent witness of Your love to the world.

[1] Leanne Payne, Restoring the Christian Soul Through Healing Prayer (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1991), 226.
Painting: Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-1311, Christ Taking Leave of the Apostles [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Meditation prepared by Sarah Colyn, drawing on the writings and ministry of Leanne Payne
Confessing Our Exile
And I saw no temple in the city,
for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.
And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it,
for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
By its light will the nations walk,
and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it,
and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.
They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.
But nothing unclean will ever enter it,
nor anyone who does what is detestable or false,
but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Revelation 21:22-27
There is a dangerous forgetfulness on our part that this world is not our true and final home. This has been greatly exacerbated by the fact that our education systems, drawing their theories from materialist philosophy, have claimed heaven to be off-limits and have taught us to look within ourselves and to this earth for the ultimate good…
I think this explains why we have such difficulty in understanding and celebrating Lent in beneficial ways. We are no longer sure deep down that we are exiles, that this is not the promised home. Therefore, we’ve accommodated ourselves to Babylon and then are overwhelmed at the sickness, fear, hatred, and violence we see here. It is a strange fact that we Christians continue to be unduly shocked and even overcome by the sight and the extent of evil we discover in the world – as if we didn’t know it to be a fallen one. [1]
Our Lenten disciplines impel us to kneel in sobriety, confessing hard and hopeful truths so that we might clear some solid ground on which to stand. This is reality: You are an exile. You were born into a created-good but sin-stained, demon-haunted world. You were carried off by your own rebellion, and only the blood of the Son of God was able to purchase you back from slavery to sin and death. You now belong to, and live in, Him. Every selfish and cruel deed committed, every horror at which you cry, “Why?!?” is a defiance of His holiness, and He is coming soon to judge it all. He is preparing a place for you and for all who will receive Him, and we will live with Him forever, finally then knowing what it is to be at home.
PRAYER
Glorious God, what a day that will be! Thank you for the victory of Your holiness on the Cross. I ask you now for Lenten grace. Sharpen my vision of heaven and strengthen my longing to reach my true home. Forgive me for yielding to the seduction of this world. Cleanse me of every accommodation I’ve made to meaningless and despair. Grant me power to rid my life of any action or posture that denies the hope of heaven. Holy God, You are worthy to receive all honor and glory and praise, now and always. Give me grace that I may join the worshippers who will rejoice forever before Your throne.
[1] Leanne Payne, Restoring the Christian Soul Through Healing Prayer (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1991), 226.
Painting: Theodorescu-Sion, 1915, Ovid in Exile [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Meditation prepared by Sarah Colyn, drawing on the writings and ministry of Leanne Payne
Hungry for God’s Presence
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and he relents over disaster.
Joel 2:12-13
That we might be more fully present to God is the very reason for fasting. By a physical fast we seek to quiet the demands of the body, thereby humbling it so that we can hear and be obedient to that word the Lord is speaking to us. It is then we can repent aright, and make the necessary prayers of intercession and atonement for others.[1]
The Lenten fast is a special means of practicing God’s presence. By abstaining from some good but finite nourishment, we affirm that God Himself is both ultimately and immanently our sustenance, energy, and enjoyment. Each pang of hunger or want is a prompting to return to God with all our hearts. This season of repentance is an invaluable gift, most needful and fruitful. Let us keep the fast, then, with joy, knowing that our gracious God intends to fill our deepest hunger: to live in familiar communion with Him.

[1] Leanne Payne, The Broken Image (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1981), 130.
Painting: Eugène Burnand, 1900, Heimgefunden [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Willing to be a new kind of person
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep.
For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
The night is far gone; the day is at hand.
So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness,
not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Romans 13:11-14 ESV
The early Christians understood that our union with Christ in His death and resurrection is what saves us, and water baptism is at once symbolic of this and a means through which the reality is imparted. The catechumen ‘died to’ his old life, was found hidden in Christ, and rose with him to an utterly new life. …
As with baptism, so too it is with healing prayer, which is in reality part of the work of baptism. We go into healing prayer as one kind of person, and we come out another. And in this action, our will is involved; unholy, we put on the new. True enough, in His Presence there is grace to do these things, but we do them. You do them. I do them. [1]
The fallen world is ever peddling ways to “become your best self now.” Sadly, resolving to be a new person in one’s own strength more often produces despair than goodness. We mustn’t confuse misguided, humanistic self-improvement with the revolution of character that occurs through healing prayer. It is only by putting on Christ that one can realistically resolve to become better, to become new. When we determine to be clothed with Him, it’s not so much that we resolve to be good as that we resolve to be Christ’s. It is awesome to be a human being, endowed with the power to do, and we begin to know the weight of glory when we do this highest of actions, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.
PRAYER
Gracious Father, thank you for my baptism. Thank you for uniting me with Christ in His death, so that my old life and all that would bind me to death has no claim on me. I bow before you in humble gratitude, casting off the works of darkness. Thank you for hiding my life in Christ, imparting to me His immortality and incorruptibility. Thank you for raising me with Him. I stand before you now, putting on Christ as my robe of righteousness. Indwell me, in-will me, for I choose to be new, I choose to be Yours. I thank you for giving me a will, and I thank you for this glorious mystery of being one with You in Christ.
[1] Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence, p. 94, 95.
Painting: Fritz von Uhde (1885) Man Dressing

Risen in Us

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live,

you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

John 14:18-20 ESV

Christ is risen, and is not only at the right hand of God the Father, but is also, by virtue of what began at Pentecost, risen in us. [1]

We who have often recited the Apostles’ Creed may have a heart-picture of Jesus with the Father in heaven. Unfortunately, our hearts may therefore see Him as being far from us, for we are certainly aware that we are not in heaven. The awesome secret of the Christian life is that He is so very near, nearer than we are to ourselves. I am not orphaned; you are not orphaned. “Another lives in me.” We need to continually speak this truth to our souls, and to other needy souls we meet. The full, resurrection power of Almighty God is available right here in the core of my being. The One who has been to the grave and rose from it uncorrupted is present to share His all with us. We know it’s true, but we need to know it more deeply and more of the time. Christ is risen! He is risen in me, He is risen in you!

PRAYER:

Thank You Jesus. Thank You for Your perfect obedience, even unto death on a cross. Thank you for keeping Your promise to come to us. Thank You for being so near, even risen in me. I ask You now for an increasing gift of faith to lay hold of this wonderful truth and to live it ever more fully. You are the center of my life. You are the center of my being. I praise Your holy name.

_____________________________________________________________________________

[1] Leanne Payne, Real Presence (Grand Rapids, Hamewith Books, 1995), p. 37.

Painting: G. Azzolino, 1572 – 1645, The Ascension. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Meditation prepared by Sarah Colyn, drawing on the books and ministry of Leanne Payne

Hope of Heaven

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead,

how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised,

your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hoped in this life only,

we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead,

the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For as by a man came death,

by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

I Corinthians 15:12, 16-22, ESV

Together with meditating on Christ’s resurrection and the great Christian hope of immortality, we could ask God to increase our desire for heaven and all it contains and for the anticipation of a future state in which we will have a new body patterned after Christ’s glorified body. Then, if we have substituted the favor of men and the things of this world for that which is only God’s and heaven’s to give, we have the great privilege of asking for the grace to deeply repent.

We can be turned around to once again face Him. We are no longer compelled to substitute the shadow for the real, our impressions about glory for the thing itself. [1]

Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Church celebrates Easter for several weeks for good reason – we need this time to contemplate His risen life and all it means. Paul points out the pitiable state of a believer who hopes in this life only, a critical caution for us today. We may not struggle with conscious unbelief in resurrection of the dead, but often we Christians live with too little joy at what awaits us. And when we lack a vision of heaven, we are too easily attracted to the lesser things of this world. Praise God for His myriad ways of moving us to look up! His Spirit stirs longings in our hearts that are undeniably larger than this life. The daily, often-painful evidence that our present bodies are corruptible moves us to thank God for our coming resurrection bodies. He reveals His splendor in creation, arresting us in moments of awe. His angels are with us, continually enticing our attention heavenward. All these promptings and more inspire us to affirm that a day is coming when we will be raised incorruptible – alleluia!

PRAYER: Gracious Father, we do ask you now to increase our desire for heaven. Whisper to our hearts about the glory that awaits us. Make us free as Your children to boldly delight in the joy of anticipation. Increase in us the supernatural gift of faith in Christ’s resurrection. Anoint us to proclaim His incorruptible life to all in need around us. We thank and praise You for imparting to us the hope of heaven.

[1] Leanne Payne, Restoring the Christian Soul Through Healing Prayer (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1991), 222.

Painting: Fra Angelico, 1440, Resurrection of Christ and Women at the Tomb [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Meditation prepared by Sarah Colyn, drawing on the writings and ministry of Leanne Payne.

SaveSave

Participating in Easter

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened.

For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

Let us therefore celebrate the festival,

not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil,

but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I Corinthians 5:7-8 ESV

In prayer, we see Him on the cross, and we take our place in His crucified body. We actually see this with the eyes of our heart as the spiritual reality is taking place. Then we see even our failure to achieve a sense of being, our horrific fear of falling into the abyss of nonbeing, taken up into His greater Being and sacrifice.

We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place

by the blood of Jesus,

by a new and living way opened for us

through the curtain, that is, his body.

Hebrews 10:19

We pass through “the curtain, that is, his body,” dying to the old diseased forms of love we have clung to as well as to the unspeakable loneliness and pain of being disrelated at this most basic of all levels. Forgiving others as well as all the circumstances of our lives, we rise with Him in newness of life. Born anew, we take our place in His resurrected Being. In the cross there is healing; in His resurrected body and life there is identity and being. [1]

We glorify our King as we enter in to His death and life, as we appropriate the healing and identity He has won for us. Let us leave even more of our stains and disfigurements in the tomb. Let us come forth that much more humble, more radiantly transparent as He shines through us. To celebrate is to participate, and to participate in the Paschal mystery is to truly live.

PRAYER: Come Holy Spirit and rend the veil. Open to us the power of the cross, the grave, and the skies that we might truly partake of Christ’s offering. Make our Easter observance an encounter, our celebration a participation. We lift our faces to You, gracious Father, confident in Your Son, and receive life.

[1] Leanne Payne, The Broken Image (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 1996), 112.

Painting: Leonard Limousin, 1553, The Resurrection [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

SaveSave

The Exercise of Repentance

Blessed is the one

whose transgressions are forgiven,

whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the one

whose sin the Lord does not count against them

and in whose spirit is no deceit.

When I kept silent,

my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

For day and night

your hand was heavy on me;

my strength was sapped

as in the heat of summer.[b]

Then I acknowledged my sin to you

and did not cover up my iniquity.

I said, “I will confess

my transgressions to the Lord.”

And you forgave

the guilt of my sin.

-Psalm 51:1-5 NIV

Repentance and the reception of God’s forgiveness, far from a set of emotions or feelings about oneself, is a definite act, a healing transaction between man and God. The need for this act, no matter in what stage of the spiritual journey one finds himself, never lessens. The seasoned saint, no less than the initiate, needs this frequent exercise. Furthermore, this exercise should form a pattern woven into the ongoing spiritual life. This pattern is necessary because, though there may be no conscious awareness of sin, there is always that within us which the Christ-life would heal and forgive. [1]

The season of Lent is a gift to us, a rich inheritance from the saints who have gone before us. There is much wisdom in dedicating forty days of each year to a deeper time of repentance. It is only when we choose to pause and invite God’s merciful searchlight that we will be taken higher up and deeper in to His life. Our fasting from the distractions of this world, and for an increased attentiveness to Jesus is always fruitful. Let us renew ourselves by the blessing of the Lenten fast, believing that God will satisfy us beyond our wildest imaginings as we persevere with Him.

PRAYER:

Gracious Father, we thank you for the possibility of repentance that you continually hold open for each one of us. We thank you for the eternal reality of the exchange You make with us through the cross of Christ – our sin, our death, our shame for Your life, Your love, Your glory. Holy Spirit come, and impart Your divine energy to us that we might be revived in our fasting, in our attentiveness to Your presence, and in healing dialog with our Father. Give us all we need to kneel humbly and fully receive the forgiveness You give, that we might rise with You and stand as image-bearers clothed in Your righteousness.

[1] Leanne Payne, Real Presence (Grand Rapids, Hamewith Books, 1995), 70.

Painting: Rembrandt, 1668, The Return of the Prodigal Son [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Meditation prepared by Sarah Colyn, drawing on the writings and ministry of Leanne Payne.

SaveSave

The Cross – from Leanne’s Archives
The Cross
By Leanne Payne
from her newsletter archives, Summer, 1993
The Cross is the Abyss of Wonders,
the Centre of Desires, the Schole of Virtues,
the Hous of Wisdom, the Throne of Love,
the Theatre of Joys and the Place of Sorrow;
It is the Root of Happiness,
and the Gate of Heaven.
Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations
I know of no modern poet who could have penned these words. There may be such a one whose lifelong meditation on Christ’s act of redeeming the world approaches the depth of the understanding this seventeenth-century Anglican poet-clergyman had, but he would have to be described, along with the likes of C. S. Lewis, as a dinosaur that somehow miraculously survived, and then suddenly appeared in this our time with its full Judeo-Christian symbolic system intact.
I read Traherne’s words to the precious folk in Denmark. I can still see the astonishment on one young man’s face. His was a wonderful one that reflected utter amazement and mutely shouted, “What in the world do such words as those mean?” Perhaps for some of you one phrase stood out. Write out that phrase in your journal just now, and then listen to God about what it means. Let the Scriptures speak to you anew of Christ’s Cross, and allow them to illumine the phrase that touched your soul. Whole books could be written on single phrases of Traherne’s eulogy. Don’t try to do that (just yet!), but begin to write out what echoed in your heart as you heard that truth.
Those of you whose hearts particularly resonated to the Cross as the “Abyss of Wonders” should not read the following until you’ve meditated upon it for yourselves. This is how it echoed in Andy Comiskey’s heart:
This means freedom from fear.
No matter what man has done to me, or will do.
No matter how badly I have fallen and have incurred the
consequences, all that raises its head above the
Lordship of Christ will die.
It dies as I dare to allow Jesus to reveal my sin
or that of another against me. I believe such revelation
is a risk – to face one’s blackness, to step off the
ground of one’s own seeming wholeness and into the
abyss of brokenness.
But that is where Jesus is found. He descended into the
abyss. In His crucifixion, He was swallowed up by the
blackness but not extinguished. In truth, the deeper He
descended and the weaker He became, the more He
revealed His power
For the abyss finds its end in Jesus. He established
the ground of the abyss by planting Himself at its
darkest, most sordid point, and then unfurling Himself
there, in glory. He frees the disfigured to rise with
Him in newness of life, in order to restore them to
their true design.
Our private and interpersonal abysses find their end in
Jesus. He establishes the wonder of His love and
creativity in those formerly hateful and barren places.
He unfurls there and raises up one like myself to
proclaim His substantial truth on the very ground once
claimed by the darkness.
Andy Comiskey, Denmark, 1993
I italicized the last sentence of the above in order to point out the incarnational reality inherent in Andy’s words. The weapons of our warfare are incarnational; they have to do with the Real Presence of God with and within us. If I stand and preach the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, and am not living in its incredible, substantive reality, if in other words, I am not married to Christ, and thereby a vessel that both holds and emanates His righteousness, I will be unable to speak and to be the truth our age is dying to hear. This gospel, in its incarnational form, that is, preached in the power of the Presence, delivers souls from the spirit of this age. It gains us a full divorce from Baal and Ashtoroth, Molech and Mammon, and espouses us to God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It heals. I will do no good, no matter what I say and teach, if I am not myself a living epistle, one from whom the very Light and the very Holiness, and the very Glory of God Himself emanates — even explodes into the lives of others who hunger for God and for meaning.

And that means I will be all the more human, fully human. The earth was given to us, the Scriptures tell us. I’ll be of the earth, earthy, feet flat on the ground, toes dug into the good earth, cherishing it. Yet I’ll be looking straight up to God, hands stretched up and out to Ultimate Reality, aware that God’s Spirit lives in me, aware of my immortality and that the more fully human I am, the greater capacity I have to carry and manifest the eternal, the heavenly.
You may want to share what the Lord speaks to your heart in regard to one of Traherne’s phrases. Address such a sharing to MPC, P. O. Box 3792, Peoria IL 61612-3792. Also, you may want to share about a healing you have received in a MPC conference, and we invite you to write that out as well. To write the story of our healing is nearly always to understand and receive more! We are listening in the Presence and celebrating God’s mighty hand upon our lives.
Reprinted with permission, copyright ©1999-2013 by Leanne Payne Literary Trust
Image: Agnolo Gaddi [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
From Leanne’s Archives: Holy Week, 2006
DEAR FRIENDS,
To have the privilege of greeting you once again is precious indeed. As I write, it is Holy Week, and my heart is full to bursting with the message of our crucified and risen Lord and with thanksgiving for our great, unspeakable inheritance in Him. The Paschal message proclaims the victory of the holy over the unholy, the noble over the ignoble, and of a Kingdom whose King reigns in righteousness and enables us to do the same.
For our sake he (God the Father) made him (God the Son) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. (2 Cor. 5:21-6:1 ESV)
“You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Pet. 1:16 ESV)
Since I attended the Palm Sunday Eucharist, tears of joy, when not falling, are close to the surface. That is because in the Eucharistic liturgy, as we celebrated Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, I had such a heightened sense of the throng’s cries of “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,” and personal memories came flooding in of the myriad ways our King comes to us, never ceasing to purify, hallow, and strengthen us for the battles we face. Today, for all of us who dearly love the real and the splendor of the truth that streams from it, these battles are increasing and loom ever larger. But in them we find that most faithfully, our King always causes us, in Him, not only to overcome but to be fruitful as through us he invites multitudes of lost and wandering souls to enter His Kingdom and find His healing.
It is no small thing to be wed to Him, to be a church in anticipation of the wedding feast of the Lamb! You may want to ponder Zechariah 14:1-9 and Revelation 19:6-16, and then go back to verses 8 and 14 of Revelation 19 for what it means, as individual members of the bride of Christ, to wear white raiment at that feast and then, in that glistening raiment, to accompany the King of Kings as He returns at the end of time. It is no small thing to be fruit-bearers in the Kingdom. Who of us blood-bought ones can, in the midst of a Palm Sunday Eucharist, meditate on such Scriptures and not be overcome with tears of joy?
In the King of Kings,

Leanne Payne

Reprinted with permission; © Leanne Payne Literary Trust
Fourteenth Station: Jesus is laid in the tomb
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.
Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.
Matthew 27: 57-60
When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.

Painting: A.N. Mironov, 2013, The Lamentation Of Christ [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Category Archive: Lent and Easter

The Cross