WEDNESDAY, April 20 Wednesday in Holy Week

John 13:21-32. After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.”

Jesus was human, too. We focus a lot on Jesus’ divinity. When the fact that he knew what it was to be human slips our grasp, his understanding seems like something cerebral and not visceral.

At the root of my humanity lies a potentially insatiable self-centeredness. Given its way, it can become unquenchable. Nothing, not even the richest of imagination, will put out its fire. This “what’s in it for me” mindset is at the root of all my problems and is where my fears live. From those fears come anger, greed, intolerance, and a host of other shortcomings.

It is no accident that all religions point to the forgetting of self, because all religions know salvation lies in self-forgetting.

Jesus knew what it was like to be human. He had to. Not like someone who’d studied it in college and now saw it in the person across the desk from him. No, he knew it like someone who had felt it all the way down to the marrow of his bones and had ached from it.

He knew it like I know it, and that gives me hope.

PRAY for the Diocese of Natal (Southern Africa)

Ps 70; Isaiah 50:4-9a; Hebrews 12:1-3

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Muslim prayer

Apr 20, 2011 at 7:32 am

Written by Kyle Fallon,

Good morning. Please refrain from including Muslim prayers in the prayer section of this Christian devotional. My Muslim understandings I can get elsewhere. God bless, and have a great Christian day!!!

-2

...

Apr 20, 2011 at 8:11 am

Written by Andrea,

Kyle, I found your post distasteful. I only rarely post in the prayers section and haven't posted a Muslim prayer, but I would feel free to do so if the Spirit moved me. Your narrow definition of what is appropriate is not mine, and I find the prayers from other traditions enriching.

Peace Makers

Apr 20, 2011 at 8:43 am

Written by Stephen,

We have a unique disposition as Christ-ones to be peacemakers. I see Christ in many places even the so called secular. Bishop Tutu once said "God is not a Christian or Muslim or Jew". This does not negate our creed and faith in Christ but reminds us that we are not afraid of other understandings as we have confidence in our faith and can share it with others without fear and by most of all listening and being, however feebly.

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly stru*gle, they in glory shine;
All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

"For All the Saint" William How

Jesus and Islam

Apr 20, 2011 at 9:20 am

Written by Bo Cox,

Knowing more than a handful of faithful Muslim brothers and sisters, I can say they're no more on the "wrong" path or no less on the "right" path, than I. When we're angry and scared of extremism, we tend to fail to accept that it exists in all cultures and religions, including our own (we need look no further than yesterday, the anniversary of the OKC bombing.)
My first reaction to the planes flying into those buildings was not "how could they do that to our country?" but, rather, "what have our country done to them to cause such anger?"
Seeking cooperation and harmony, not dominance and superiority, is Jesus' way.
Peace...

typo

Apr 20, 2011 at 9:22 am

Written by Bo Cox,

I should've said, "what has our country" not "what have."

...

Apr 20, 2011 at 10:28 am

Written by jim,

this is a good reading because we all have shortcommings and get our feelings hurt, and yes sometimes we are betrayed.

...

Apr 20, 2011 at 10:29 am

Written by Barbara Summers,

I cannot agree with any faith that rejects Jesus Christ as Savior and Messiah. However, all religions contain elements of truth, and there are extremists everywhere.

What Had We Done

Apr 20, 2011 at 10:56 am

Written by Jim Jenkins,

In response to Bo.

What had we done? We followed a path other than that of Islam. Our fellow Christianas around the world have been killed by Islamists (Nigeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, etc.) in the past 30 years and this behavior is consistent with both the Koran and the history of Islam. Additionally, Christians have not been alone. Note the treatment of animists, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and Zoroastrians, by Islamists.

The success of the United States and its support for Isreal obtained "special" attention from Bin Laden and his ilk, but the hatred and violence directed our way was nothing unusual.

comparison

Apr 20, 2011 at 11:09 am

Written by Bo Cox,

Are all those instances of islamic genocide comparable to the genocide against Native Americans as we "brought" Christianity to this land (when in reality we were scooping up profit by turning natural resources into commodities and dollars, under the the Christian Banner of Manifest Destiny and the Discovery Doctrine) and built it on the backs of an enslaved people (refer again to the term genocide) in the African American slave workforce that was used to "build" our country?
We opened missions on reservations and forced African people to adopt Christianity (albeit in their own churches on the plantation, not in "our" churches).
Is this anything like what you're talking about those bad Muslims doing?

comparison continued

Apr 20, 2011 at 11:52 am

Written by Mike Armstrong,

And then there is the small matter of the crusades in which for hundreds of years our Christian forebears went merrily off to slaughter the infidel Muslims in the Holy Land, which flowed right into the Inquisition which tortured Jews and Christians who weren't Catholic enough until they supposedly converted. Our history is no prettier than that described for the Islamists. At least the author above notes a distinction between Islamists and Muslims; the former is a relatively tiny, misguided subset.

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