Amy Boucher Pye

Tag: Holy Week

  • Journeying with Jesus during Holy Week

    As we approach Holy Week next week, the culmination of the season of Lent, we can be gentle to ourselves, however we’re feeling, whether tired, weary, hopeful, or perhaps wishing that we’d kept more rigorously to the practices we chose at the start. Whatever has gone before us, know that God welcomes us to journey with Jesus in the here and now. God’s loving invitation to deepen our faith during this holy week stands.

    One way to approach this week is to consider what Jesus experienced each day of his life that week. To help imagine what was happening at various moments, I invite you to download an outline of the events, which I’ve adapted from the NIV Application Commentary: Matthew by Michael J. Wilkins (Zondervan, 2004), pp. 709–10.

    I also invite you to join me on Tuesday for a half-hour of prayer via zoom as I lead an engagement with Jesus’ journey via Coracle’s Space for God. More information here.


    Lord Jesus Christ, as we enter into the events of this Holy Week, I come to you in humility, confessing my wrongdoing and receiving your forgiveness. May the events of this last week of your life be brought alive to me, that I might know you more intimately and be more grateful for your sacrifice, which gives me life. I join the crowds to shout out with joy, “Hosanna to the King of kings! Blessed are you who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

    Subscribers to my newsletter received this free resource before Holy Week last year. I welcome you to join the newsletter community!

  • Preparing for Easter

    Soon we’ll be entering Holy Week, when those who follow Jesus join in, again, with the events of the shaping story of our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

    You might feel that you’ve fallen short or failed in what you hoped to do/read/observe during this season of Lent. For me, the Lenten book I ordered never arrived; I’ve waited and hoped that it would come while reading the first week, kindly made available by the author to those of us who decided at the last minute to use her resource.

    But in God’s kingdom it’s not too late. He welcomes us to enter into the story fully, whether we’ve been able to be faithful or not. He sparks the desire within us and gives it the oxygen and fuel to help it burn brightly.

    I welcome you to enter into the story this Holy Week with wonder and sorrow. One way to do so is through praying through the events of the week as they happen. I share a guide to do so in the linked article, written for my lovely friends at BRF, the publisher of my forthcoming book in November with my dad’s art (which will be perfect for next Lent!), Holding onto Hope.

    May you receive from God exactly what he has just for you in the coming week as we journey to the cross and the resurrection.

    https://www.brf.org.uk/preparing-for-easter/?fbclid=IwAR2Nm0llUAcSZibcgGOEkiOeef0bjyTJJRTZPOo_fdK_p5lG0D0YpbdjJb4

    PS how cool is it to be ‘well loved’!!

  • Watercolor Wednesday: The Hints of Life to Come

    I have a few more of my dad’s watercolors to share with you this Holy Week, but they are more suited to Good Friday than today. I chose this one as fitting because of the starkness of the trees that appear dead, but yet will spark into life. I love the mixture of green grass and mud that is common in Spring in Minnesota – again, that intermingling of death and new life.

    As I think about this painting, I ponder how the events of Holy Week bring us back to the central tenets of our faith:

    Christ has died
    Christ is risen
    Christ will come again!

  • Jesus’ last week: A guide to prayer

    We’ve arrived at Holy Week, ushered in yesterday on Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. As I outline in my book, The Living Cross, one way to approach Holy Week is to consider each day what Jesus experienced, being conscious throughout the day of the unfolding events. I compiled the following based on what I found in Michael J. Wilkins, The NIV Application Commentary: Matthew (Zondervan, 2004), pp. 
709–10.

    Saturday (8 April)

    Palm Sunday (9 April)

    Monday (10 April)

    Tuesday (11 April)

    Wednesday (12 April)

    Thursday (13 April)

    Good Friday (14 April)

    Holy Saturday (15 April)

    • (Waiting.)

    Resurrection Sunday (16 April)

  • A Holy Week Poem

    Holy Week. I feel busy this week. Too busy. But I offer this poem that I wrote some years ago to remind myself to stop and consider the grand story of redemption being played out this week.

    DSCN9808
    O Jesus of Nazareth,
    Thorns we twisted and turned
    Upon your head we placed,
    Crowning you King of the Jews.
     
    Upon you we spat;
    With a reed we struck your head.
    Kneeling in homage, we mocked,
    With our lips; with our hearts.
     
    Crucified, we crucified,
    Nailing you to the tree
    Watching you whither and bleed
    As darkness came over the land.
     
    From deep you cried out,
    Not at us, but to your Father:
    “My God, my God, my God—
    “Why have you forsaken me?”
     
    Those words cut to the depth of our soul
    Reverberating from within
    We watched you breathe your last,
    And the curtain was torn in two.
     
    From what we have seen and heard,
    Indeed, from what we have done,
    We echo the words of the centurion,
    That truly, the Son of God you are!
     
     © 1999 Amy Boucher Pye