Category: inspire 15

There is a feast awaiting each and everyone of us but it is not the meal we are each expecting…

Today is the last day of school around my part of the world and tomorrow we will wake to a day of rest for most families with a public holiday. A time for family, food and relaxation.

Let me introduce you to my neighbour, we have met only a few times. A wave on the beach, a ball over the fence, a cup of tea in the midst of both our busy schedules. Today is more than a special day as a teacher for her as she signs off from the desk for quite a while. She is due her third baby in a few short weeks so I thought I would drop a bakers dozen at her front door, when she arrives home from work this afternoon.

The feast is not the banana muffins or the raw balls or even the choc chip cookies…

The feast is broken humanity noticing and acknowledging each other.

The feast is knowing my neighbour and the small, inconsequential milestones that my nearest humans are celebrating.

Yesterday my Mum told me a story however that could be a feast awaiting but at the moment it remains lonely and broken.

My Mum runs a home for homeless pregnant women and their greatest joy is to set up house for the ladies as they shift with their newborns into a new accommodation. She was grieved yesterday because a refugee beautiful woman, who is here without her husband because he is in a refugee camp in Sudan, was in need and she was not able to help this lady because of the overwhelming needs in the house right now. The lady with a newborn, had just shifted into a new house from the House of Hope (Mum’s refuge) yet had hardly any furniture and couldn’t even set up the bed she had been given because of her pain from childbirth.

She may be your neighbour?

She may be just around the corner from you…

And she is hurting.

She is afraid.

She is the most vulnerable that she has ever been.

The feast awaits.

It could be a cup of tea and a biscuit.

It could be a washing machine.

It could be so many things.

The problem is the feast remains a famine because of one little thing.

A tiny little thing.

It takes courage to check in and ask the question.

Today marks the beginning of the Easter week journey. Jesus sat with his closest companions to feast and prepare for the greatest act anyone can give. To lay down their life for another. Mixed with sadness, joy, brilliance and betrayal, this feast went ahead, even though it was far from perfect.

In fact it was a very imperfect offering.

But this was the feast…

A call to prefer another before ourselves.

What feast awaits you this Easter?

Maybe it is a little different to the one you imagined

Have you ever walked into a room and realised that there is someone in it, who you really don’t want to see?

I have.

You know when you walk down the aisle in the supermarket and someone walks towards you, causing a quick reflex, duck for cover action…

I have.

When I walked through the crowd at church and I see someone that I really don’t want to have ‘that’ conversation with.

I have.

We all deny our knowledge of people at some point in time. Hoping not to have an awkward conversation, hoping not to be included in their drama, hoping to be spared somewhat the anxiety.

We all have done it.

But what if that someone was about to be punished for a crime they didn’t commit?

What if that someone was one of your closest friends that you had spent time with every day of the last few years?

That is the beginning of the real story of Easter.

It begun with denial.

It begun with people closest to the patriarch of the story, it began with those who loved Him. It began steeped in deep betrayal, of those closest.

The walk towards Calvary, began with his closest friends denying that they knew Him.

Peter Denies Jesus

54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance. 55 And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. 56 Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” 57 But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” 58 And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” 59 And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” 62 And he went out and wept bitterly. Luke 22:54-62 (ESV)

How awkward.

How difficult.

How terribly shameful.

We have all done things that we are ashamed of. We have all had moments, when we know that we need to address something or someone and we have averted our eyes. We have all had times when we wished we had spoken up for someone and didn’t.

We are often plagued by denial because it is such a passive emotion. Easily argued away by the voices in our heads and excuses in our hearts.

It doesn’t change the way it alters us.

The only way we can move past denial, is admitting we have been wrong and asking forgiveness.

This forgiveness often is most difficult in applying it to ourselves.

I want to be someone who faces those difficult times in my life and truly, authentically, even when it is terribly awkward tells the truth.

How about you?

 

 

 

Come and join our creative #inspire15 journey and follow these April Prompts to do something creative this month. I will be highlighting and profiling some of the amazing work that people are producing as a part of this journey.