March 10, 2020
For the devil to capture your soul,
For evil to work its way into your heart,
it must first steal your memory.
Not just any memory,
your good memories:
memories of feeling loved, held, happy,
memories of feeling curious, encouraged, excited,
memories of belonging, friendship, safety,
memories of hope, dedication, desire.
God writes these memories into our soul.
These memories of being loved and desire to love;
Memories of beauty and creation,
Memories of our ability to create, play and protect.
God’s love is spoken to us in these memories.
Naturally the devil wants us to forget
That we were ever loved,
That we ever belonged,
That we were ever brave,
That we love to play,
Love to create,
Love beautiful things
Love friends,
That we care for people who hurt,
That we oppose evil.
Prayer is when we remember
everything the devil wants us to forget.
Jesus climbs the mountain to pray
As he prays, he remembers
All the ways God’s love has been written into soul.
He remembers that he is God’s beloved.
As he remembers, he experiences it,
He shines, he glows, he looks different-
even his friends see the difference.
Jesus climbs the mountain to pray
Because when he comes down the mountain
Everything is going to go wrong.
Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
When everything goes wrong
It seems things will go wrong forever
We forget that we were ever loved
And don’t think we ever will be-ever again.
The devil will whisper in his ear
That God no longer loves Jesus
There is no God to love Jesus
No one loves Jesus.
Helplessness, pain and loneliness is all there is.
What does Jesus do on the cross?
What does Jesus do while he is dying?
He prays, he remembers,
He remembers the love God writes in his soul,
The love that will raise Jesus from the dead.
In lent we pray, so when you pray this Lent
Do what Jesus did, remember,
Remember all the ways in which you have
Felt love, enjoyed life, relished beauty,
Healed pain and fought evil.
Start with your earliest memories
And work your way forward,
through all the people and all the experiences
that have changed you, loved you,
made you shine, made you glow,
made you strong,
left you trusting God loves you.
Like Jesus, we have lots of other memories,
Suffering, loneliness, disappointment.
The devil wants you to make these memories
More important than your memories of love.
Don’t let the devil do it.
Even if like Jesus
Everything is going wrong
And you are hanging on your cross
Don’t let the devil make
The evil that has happened in your life
Stronger than the love.
The only way to do that is to pray,
Pray hard, pray often.
We don’t have to pray for a long time
A few minutes a day, everyday, will do.
Don’t worry so much about what you are going to say
Focus on what you remember.
Use the bible to help you remember
That the history of God’s love written there
Includes you, you and the Risen Lord Jesus.
Sisters and brothers in the season of Lent
We hold tight in prayer
To all our memories of love,
Knowing that the God that writes them
Will raise us from death to life without end.
Amen.