Place: Home
Poison: Granmas carrot cake
Favorite things: Our new Moses basket ready for Baby V…
Shrove Tuesday is the ultimate seasonal opening quotation mark “…
The day before Ash Wednesday, the opening moment in a statement that would determine the course of history eternally and unveil the 40 day journey towards the magnificent week of Easter.
I am embarking on the journey that this apostrophe mark denotes and I want to invite you along also.
Each day for the next 40ish days (Lent excludes the Sundays, but I won’t be) I am going to read a piece of scripture and reflect upon it through this blog.
I am using a 40 day tool from the You bible application and I will insert the chapter I have read each day on this blog for you to read also. Feel free to comment and post as well, I believe this interactive journey has the creative potential to impact us together.
Day 1: Shrove Tuesday “…. Quotation mark opened!
John chapter 12: 1-11
Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance. But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself. Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” When all the people heard of Jesus’ arrival, they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too, for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus. (John 12:1-11 NLT)
There is so much in this one piece of scripture. Beginning with a man who has been raised from the dead, a woman who diligently lives a life of servanthood, a woman with much to be thankful for who wastes her precious dowry, a betrayer, a saviour, the clergyand the poor.
Every person no matter their story is leveled by the closing “…quotation marks of the eternal statement made by Jesus that changed the course of history.
Personally I can get so sidetracked by my everyday circumstances, my fears and failures, that I forget the quotation mark that was predetermined before my birth that leveled me with every other human being. The fact that Jesus has gone before me and paved a way for my freedom.
That is why in so many cultures today Pancake Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday is a day of celebration, it’s the pre-cursor to a season of sacrifice and mourning. It’s the quotation that opens up a statement, which is far from finished until the final days of the season.
If you find yourself in a place where you feel like you are in the midst of a trial or turbulence. Let me encourage you that the statement may be opened by a quotation, but it is far from finished.
Hopefully the next 40 days will take you on a journey that details and narrates the author of your story, the ultimate creator and finisher of our manuscript.
Pilgram pick up your pen and let’s seek together.
The journey has only just begun.
A
