Introduction

The Spirit Driven Task Force is a lay-led group of almost three dozen members of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Hickman, formed to pray and study together and to examine the life of the congregation in the light of God’s guidance in Scripture and Tradition. The group held its first gathering on Sunday, April 17, 2011. This is the meditation I shared as part of the group’s devotions to begin the gathering.

Reading

Luke 22:39–46

Meditation

This week—more than any other—
reminds us that we are followers of “The Way,”
disciples of a Lord who bears a cross,
who carries that cross and us and our sins
into the depths and to his death.

This is the week we mark a procession
from palms to hyssop to garden,
moving from triumph to betrayal,
from trial and to burial.

As we know and trust and confess,
that grave did not contain him,
death did not have the last word.
And in a few short days,
once we have shared in his Supper,
contemplated his crucifixion,
we will gather again to raise our shouts of joy.

But along the way,
we stop in the garden,
with our Lord and our fellow disciples,
and find it is no place of peace.

Our Lord Jesus comes here to pray,
to ask for the bitter cup to pass him by.
But in the end, he himelf is obedient.
And so Jesus, the Son says,

Father, if you are willing,
remove this cup from me;
yet, not my will but yours be done (Luke 22:42, NRSV).

We could say that the crucifixion begins here.
It starts with the submission of the Son to the will of his Father.
And so, if we want to be followers of our Lord,
then we begin here as well.
We begin by saying, “Not my will but yours, Father, be done.”

In truth, that is what was said for us
on the day we each were baptized.
Someone, on your behalf and mine,
made a vow to God Almighty,
that we would follow his Son, in obedience,
according to their will, not ours.

Our mission statement says the same thing.
When we are “Spirit-driven,”
then God and his will drive us,
and not the other way around.
The Spirit of the Father
inspires our worship, energizes our witness,
deepens our learning, molds our service,
and directs our support—
all to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our task in these gatherings, as people of The Way,
is to recall one another and our whole community
to the path of obedience to our Lord, to the way of the cross,
to deny ourselves, and to embrace our Father’s will.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor and martyr,
writes for our sake in The Cost of Discipleship (p. 88),

To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self,
to see only him who goes before
and no more the road that is too hard for us.

This is the truth: no road is too hard,
no way too treacherous, no solution out of reach,
for us who follow our Lord Jesus Christ
and who bear his cross
marked upon our brows and laid upon our shoulders. Amen.