It's Palm Sunday, the last Sunday of Lent and the beginning of the most important week in the Christian year: Holy Week. Ever since I was very young, I have been intrigued with this time of year. The realization of what Jesus did--what Jesus endured--during those days on earth so long ago has always gripped me emotionally, ever since I can remember. My parents, Sunday School teachers, counselors, pastors--none of them candy coated the events of Jesus' passion and death, or shielded me from the blood, brutality, and horror of his suffering. The reality of the beatings, the scourging, and the crucifixion were always starkly real to me, so even as a child I felt the weight of all that Jesus went through for me, and for the whole world. Of course, since living in Israel (just five blocks away from where many of the events of Holy Week took place!) the power and meaning and depth of all of this is even more profoundly rich and significant for me. It's "incarnational!" Spirit made flesh. Words on a page made three dimensional. Ideas made alive. Sunday School teaching made real. History made concrete. The "incarnation!" What an amazing and powerful theological reality and truth! No other religion has such a profound and engaging claim. This is Jesus! The very Son of God who comes to us, not waiting far away in the distance for us to try and make our way to Him! The Creator of the universe riding a donkey down a hilly slope and into an ancient city, ultimately on His way to the most painful death imaginable. It's unfathomable; irrational; nonsensical. Yet for we who know Jesus, it is powerfully true!

I'm glad I was exposed to all the harsh and stark realities of Holy Week from the time I was a very small child. I think this honesty and bluntness on the part of the adults who loved me and raised me in faith helped make me responsible early on to seek out and wrestle with my relationship with God. I was never given a nice neatly organized logical faith with every "i" dotted and "t" crossed. I'm glad, because you only need to look at the bloody, messy gore of Holy Week to see that our relationship with God is meant to be gritty and scruffy, un-neat and unorganized. If we are truly going to be engaged with the world God so loved, our faith is not going to have everything neatly in place and nicely appointed. We will smack up against the injustice, the hurt, the pain, and the chaos that is everywhere in this world God so loved and, from hearts and lives committed to the Lord, cry out "WHY?" Even the best biblical and theological answers do not adequately explain and "make alright" the overwhelming circumstances and suffering that cover the world. They are an affront to the conditions and aching realities that so many face around the world.

But then, there is Jesus, hanging on a cross. Beaten, bruised, and bloodied beyond recognition. There is God, incarnated in the bloody, messy gore of Holy Week. I believe that this is an answer that refugees in Darfur, AIDS patients in India, victims of terrorists in Iraq, and mothers who have lost children because of contaminated drinking water can grasp, and even understand. This is real! This is "God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son..." This is a God I believe our culture is crying out for. Do you know Him? Is He your Lord and Savior? Wouldn't you love to get to know Him, who so loves this world?

Beginning today and throughout this Holy Week, I will be posting daily "Visual Devotions" on the Hilmar Covenant Church website. I hope that my pictures can be a way for you to connect better with the amazing realities of Holy Week. Besides the photos of the places where the events of this week occurred, I will be listing relevant readings from the Bible for each day, from now through Easter. I hope you enjoy this different approach to your daily devotional time during this very meaningful week, and that whatever I share helps take you more deeply into your relationship with the Lord.

Dominus vobiscum. Et cum spiritu tuo.

This is the fifth week of Lent, the season in the Church Year leading up to Holy Week--and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus on Easter! As I’ve said before, Lent is a time for us to reflect on our relationship with God and to seek closer communion with Him. During these weeks, it is important for us to be honest with God, to discern and confess our sins to God--everything that compromises our lives and steers us away from Him--and to seek His forgiveness so we can celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection from death on Easter Sunday with clean hearts, clear minds, and a renewed relationship with the Lord.

However, it is important that we reflect not only on our personal lives and relationship with God, but also on our life as Hilmar Covenant Church--one part of Christ’s Body on earth. What are the things that are compromising our life as a congregation and steering us away from God?

One area on which we need to continue to focus is unity. Last summer I wrote about this topic in the church newsletter, and as the year has progressed, I have felt that this continues to be a critical issue for our congregation. Throughout this season of Lent, I have been pleading with the Lord for insight and help for our church, Hilmar Covenant. The answer that keeps coming back to me is: unity.

I would suggest that this is where our confession and repentence need to begin this Lenten season, individually and as a congregation. We need deep introspection and keen awareness of everything that is preventing us from being united. We need to be deeply honest and willing to confront one another, in love, where we are harboring feelings of doubt, hurt feelings, ill will, or anger. Perhaps we need to spend prolonged time together in prayer and fasting, seeking forgiveness, healing, and a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit so we can re-focus and re-commit ourselves to the mission of our church. Unity is the key! Laying aside all of our personal agendas, preferences, and perspectives and really discovering what God wants of us: Hilmar Covenant Church!

Here again is the article I wrote last summer. May it stimulate your thinking about our church, challenge you in your walk with the Lord, and open you up to new ways you can help bring our congregation together in unity!

From late July, 2007: (three things happened in just a few days' time, which brought me to the realization that our congregation is not unified)

"First, Bret and I had some intense conversations last week about our need for unity as a congregation as we look to the future; to being more “missional” in our witness and to grasp more clearly what it means to follow Jesus.

Second, I read a devotional by C.S. Lewis early Sunday morning before coming to church. This is what he wrote in his classic book, Mere Christianity:
If Christianity is true, why are not all Christians obviously nicer than all non-Christians? What lies behind this question is partly something very reasonable and partly something that is not reasonable at all. The reasonable part is this: If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man’s outward actions--if he continues to be just as snobbish or spiteful or envious as before--then I think we must suspect that his ‘conversion’ was largely imaginary; and after one’s original conversion, every time one thinks one has made an advance, this is the test to apply. Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in ‘religion’ mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better. In that sense the outer world is quite right to judge Christianity by its results. Christ told us to judge by results. A tree is known by its fruit; or as we say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The war-time posters told us that Careless Talk Costs Lives. It is equally true that Careless Lives Cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself.

Then in worship, Pastor Samuel Galdamez used the following text in his powerful sermon on the importance--indeed, the necessity!--of unity in the body of Christ:
“A new command I give: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

I feel a strong conviction about this, for each of us individually and for us as a church. Are we truly unified as a congregation? Do our “fruits” demonstrate this? Does the Hilmar community know us as a church full of people that deeply love one another, as Christ taught us? Notice that this is a command of Jesus, not a suggestion!

Nothing weakens a church’s witness and effectiveness more than divisiveness, negativity, animosity, and individualism. These traits manifest themselves in many ways: in critical attitudes, in finger-pointing, in being preoccupied with one’s own salvation, desires, and interests, in looking backward instead of forward, in being fearful of change--of necessary change if we are truly going to be a vibrant and effective church impacting our community in the next century, in lack of trust between us, in lack of commitment, in following Christ with words but not with actions (C.S. Lewis!), and so forth and so on.

Is the reason we haven’t been growing as a church (even as Hilmar has continued to get bigger) because of lack of unity in our body? Take an inventory of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions about Hilmar Covenant: Do you feel strongly connected to your brothers and sisters in Christ here in our congregation? How much time and energy do you give to connecting with others? To new people and visitors as well as to familiar friends? Do you have confidence in the direction our church is moving? Do you support the new attempts we’ve made to connect with our community, and with each other (ex. Spanish ministry, skateboard park, “Weave”)? If so, do you back it up with your actions--i.e. your participation? Are you skeptical, disapproving, critical of the things being proposed? Or are you totally clueless about our direction and purpose as a church?

How passionate are you about “following Jesus?” Is it always in the background during the day, how you’re “re-presenting” Jesus to those around you? I fear that the reason the Christian Church here in the West is looked upon with suspicion, hostility, and cynicism by much of our culture is the reality that we who claim to follow Jesus do not do a good job re-presenting him in our living. “A tree is known by its fruits...” The question we need to ask ourselves is: “Where is the fruit?” I’m convinced that lack of unity is a key part of this issue. Christ’s body is divided, all over the place, and we, individually, are divided inside. Too often and too much, we are not “doers of the word,” but are “hearers only, deceiving (ourselves)” (James 1:22pp). Throughout my life, I have often asked myself how my spiritual life might really be more like that of the Pharisees--and how I might not even be aware of the ways I’m not “following Jesus.” As Christians, I fear that most of us have an intellectual, “believing” faith that is not lived out well or properly in our actions. We think we’re fine--but you know what Jesus called such religious folks! (see Matt. 23:27-28) There is disunity even in our own heart and soul.

We need to be made whole, as individuals and as a church. We need to be united, in purpose and in mission. We need to be doers of the word--in all of our life--and not just easy, comfortable hearers, giving intellectual assent to good doctrine and theology. We will never agree on all of this stuff anyways! And in the Covenant, we acknowledge this reality. What we need to do is affirm one another as we “follow Jesus” together, trusting that we are his disciples together, regardless of differences between us. We need to “weave” our lives together, more deeply, purposefully, and naturally, as we are seeking to do at this summer’s Sunday night services. This will draw us together in unity, friendship, and ultimately, love. And maybe then, people around us in our community will be amazed at us, and will even say about us with astonishment: “They have been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13b)

It is said that at the end of his life, all that the apostle John could say to those who came to see him was “love one another.” This is at the core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. This is why we read it so often in the gospel and epistles of John. This is the word of the Lord! Let’s live it out, in true unity, as we continue forward with many new challenges in the life of our church."