Come Learn Rest Ministries

We began Holy Week in Iceland in search of the Northern Lights. Due to five days of cloudy weather we never experienced the beauty of this natural phenomenon. But we did discover the beautifully written Hymns of the Passion. In the late 1600’s Hallgrimur Petursson wrote 50 meditations containing the Biblical themes of the passion of Christ. Since they were first published in 1666, they have been read or sung during Lent. In fact, we read several of them in the Palm Sunday service we attended at Hallgrims Church.

When we were not snowmobiling on a glacier or sightseeing around Reykjavik (below is a picture taken from the harbor), I spent time reading these hymns. Seeing Christ’s life, betrayal, death, burial and resurrection through the poetic writings of Petursson has helped me fully embrace the reality that the central focus of Easter is simply our proclamation that Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth.

These last stanzas from Petursson’s book tell of Christ’s victory and our risen hope:

He is ever before me,
To Him my heart I give.
Whatever may come o’er me,
In him I move and live.
He is my consolation;
He is my very life.
I rest in His salvation ,
And fear not Death’s sharp strife.

He gives me strength for living,
In death His help is nigh.
Thou weakness cause misgiving,
I do not fear to die.
O, Death, my Lord has spoken,
For me His book was spilt,
And now thy yoke is broken,
Be welcome, when thou wilt!

HE IS RISEN INDEED…Amen and amen!

Christ has set us free to live a free life.
So take your stand!
Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.
Galatians 5:1 (MSG)

Each season of Lent is its own journey. This year, I am asking for the freedom to dance.  My desire is to to stand up each new day and freely enter into moments and movement with the Trinity. Long ago, St. Augustine described this dance beautifully.

I praise the dance for it frees people
from the heaviness of matter and binds the isolated to community.

I praise the dance, which demands everything:
health and a clear spirit and a buoyant soul.

Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people,
who are in constant danger of becoming all brain, will or feeling.

Dancing demands the whole person,
one who is firmly anchored in the center of his life,
who is not obsessed by lust for people and things
and the demon of isolation in his own ego.

Dancing demands a freed person,
One who vibrates with the equipoise of all his powers.

I praise the dance.
O man, learn to dance,
or else the angels in heaven will not known what to do with you.
~St. Augustine

As we continue toward Easter, may you and I take off our harnesses and stand with the Son of the Living God, whose death, burial and resurrection frees us to live a dancing life.