Stephanie Rische

Blogger and Writer: Capturing Stories of God's Grace

Maundy Thursday Reflections on Toilet Paper

If the grocery store shelves were any indication, you might assume that the best way to treat COVID-19 is with toilet paper and paper towels.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, I suppose: in a time when there’s so little we can control, we can at least have the tangible relief of knowing our cabinets are well stocked.

I confess that I’m a saver by nature, even under non-pandemic circumstances. I like to have backups, and backups for my backups. In this season of unknowns, I’ve been fighting my instinct to hoard everything from supplies to money to time to yes, toilet paper. How long will this last? What if we lose our jobs? What if there’s a global food shortage? What if . . . what if . . . what if?

Then I read the account of Jesus’ feet being anointed with oil during holy week, and it struck me in a new way in this Era of Empty Store Shelves.

A few days before he died, Jesus went to the home of his friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. And there, Mary enacted a gesture of extreme love and generosity.

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.

John 12:3

According to some scholars, this jar of perfume was likely Mary’s dowry—what would have been given to a suitor to pay the bride price. The perfume was essentially her past and her future . . . and she lavished it on Jesus in a single extravagant outpouring.

She didn’t hoard her gift. She didn’t measure it out, a little at a time. She didn’t cling to it as her security. She wasn’t consumed by a scarcity mindset.

She embraced the present moment and seized the sacred now. She poured out what she had—all of it.

And I wonder, what would it look like to pour out extravagant love and generosity in this season?

I want to keep my eyes and my hands and my heart open.
I want to love and give extravagantly.
I want to pour out what I’ve been given.

I’d like to think that if Jesus wanted my last roll of toilet paper, I’d give it to him.

Go peaceful
in gentleness
through the violence of these days.
Give freely.
Show tenderness
in all your ways.

God hold you,
enfold you,
and keep you wrapped around His heart.
May you be known by love.

Northumbria Community meditation

Wasted Love

If you had been alive during that first Easter, who would you have been?

Would you have been Peter, bold and brash, defending Jesus in the only way you knew how?

Would you have been John, quiet and steadfast in your heartbreak?

Would you have been one of the women who wiped Jesus’ brow on his agonizing climb to Golgotha, showing love even as your hopes crumbled?

Would you have been Thomas, asking for proof yet keeping a sliver of belief alive?

I’m not sure who I would have been. I like to think I’d cling to hope even before I could see how everything unfolded, but I’m not sure. I’m much better at believing in miracles in retrospect, after I have the whole picture.

But it’s easy to identify the person I would like to be. I want to be Mary, who poured out her perfume on Jesus’ feet.

Just before he died, Jesus went to the home of his friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. And there, Mary enacted a most extravagant gesture of love. Here’s the story:

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.
John 12:3

You might think everyone around would have been impressed by Mary’s act of generosity. Instead, she was judged for being wasteful.

Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray [Jesus], said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.”
John 12:4-5

According to some scholars, this jar of perfume was likely Mary’s dowry—what would have been given to a suitor to pay the bride price. The perfume was essentially her past and her future . . . and she lavished it on an uncredentialed rabbi from a backwoods town.

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.”
John 12:7-8

Sometimes I find myself assuming that Jesus would have been ultra-practical—frugal, even. “Waste not; want not”—that’s in the Bible somewhere, right? Somewhere near “God helps those who help themselves”?

But to my surprise, Jesus didn’t chastise Mary over the apparent wastefulness of her act. He didn’t tell her she should have focused on her savings account or reserved some her retirement. He didn’t even criticize her for not giving to charity.

He told her that her lavish devotion, her extravagant love, was beautiful.

And this Holy Week I wonder: What am I willing to “waste” on God and the people he’s given me to love?

Am I so concerned about being careful and judicious and economical that I fail to shower my love in unpractical ways?

What would it look like for us to show extravagant, “wasteful” love this week?

  • Maybe extravagant love looks like scrapping our to-do list and doing some leisurely Bible reading instead.
  • Maybe extravagant love looks like “wasting” the afternoon playing with your favorite little person, even if the proof isn’t captured on Facebook or Instagram.
  • Maybe extravagant love looks like doing something for someone who will never be able to pay you back or properly thank you.
  • Maybe extravagant love looks like “wasting” the morning by going on a walk and taking in the world God made.

Because here’s what I think—and I have a hunch Mary would agree: If it’s real love, it’s never wasted.

Your Very Worst Day

gardenWe don’t like to go there, even in the realm of the hypothetical. But would you sit with me for a while in this brave, sacred space?

What’s your very worst day?

Maybe it’s already happened . . . a day permanently earmarked on the calendar of your heart. Every day of your life is now divided into before and after.

Or maybe it’s a day looming in the future . . . the day when the thing you dread most becomes reality.

On a week like this one, two thousand years ago, Jesus faced the worst possible 24 hours a human being could ever face.

He was stabbed in the back by someone close to him.
One of his best friends saved his own skin instead of sticking up for him.
Then, in his darkest hour, the rest of his friends deserted him.
His body was ravaged, and he was left to die.
He was rejected, despised, forsaken, betrayed. And utterly alone.

On that Holy Thursday, as he ate supper with his followers, he knew all of this lay ahead of him. He could see ahead to the horror of his very worst day. Yet as he headed to the Garden with his friends, he sang a hymn with them (Mark 14:26). It’s such a small line in the narrative, it’s easy to miss.

In the midst of all that had happened and all that was to come, he sang.

According to Jewish tradition, the Hallel was chanted during Passover, a collection of songs taken from Psalms 113-118. This means it’s likely that some of the last words on Jesus’ lips before he was arrested included these lines:

This is the Lord’s doing,
and it is wonderful to see.
This is the day the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
—Psalm 118:23-24

As we sit with Jesus the Garden, it’s hard to escape the dichotomy. How could he find a way to praise amid the pain? How could he see the wonder in the anguish? How could he rejoice amid the drops of blood? How could he cling to the belief that on his very worst day, the Lord was doing something wonderful—something not just to endure but to be glad in?

And I wonder: Could I have sung that hymn on my very worst day? Or would I have choked on the words?

But Jesus sang, and that changes everything. Jesus’ worst day became the best day of all. And now we call it, without irony, Good Friday.

May the same be true for us. On our worst day, may we be found in the Garden singing, “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

 

Broken Things

messy ball“What’s the one thing you can give God that he didn’t give you first?”

The words reverberated in my heart, almost more riddle than question.

What did I have to give that wasn’t an overflow of his generosity and grace? All the good things in my life—daily bread, work for my hands, people to love, even my next breath—are gifts from him.

How could I possibly have something of my own to give back?

And then came the answer: my brokenness.

Such a wonder—that the King of universe, who deserves only the finest and the loveliest and the best, would accept something as messy and humiliating as my own brokenness. The God who could not be contained within the walls of the most splendid temple—that same God stoops to receive my cracked and wounded gift. And not just accept it, but yearn for it, delight in it.

The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
—Psalm 51:17

Scripture confounds me with its accounts of God’s tenderness toward broken things. When Jesus came into this world, he had every right to expect the best accommodations, the best company, the best service. Yet royalty though he was, he came humbly, seeking out every broken and beloved soul he could find.

In fact, he didn’t have much time for the people who had it all together; he looked for those with broken hearts, broken lives, broken reputations. He showered his love on people from broken families, people with broken bodies, people who have broken their promises.

God loves broken things.

And in perhaps the most beautiful display of his love for the broken, he offered his own body to be broken, so that we might be whole again (Luke 22:19).

If you are feeling broken today, take heart. Jesus himself knows what it is be broken, to live broken, to embrace brokenness. But he also knows how to put broken things back together again.

Holy Week is the place where all who are broken become whole.

Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory.
—1 Corinthians 15:43