🦋 Made New: Again and again.

Practicing resurrection hope in our daily lives.

When Jesus was crucified, all who loved Him wept in anguish. It's hard for us now, knowing the glorious Resurrection that was to come, to truly wrap our minds around how devastated His friends and family must have felt at His death.

“Resurrection is another word for change, but particularly positive change—which we tend to see only in the long run. In the short run, it often just looks like death,” says Richard Rohr.

As humans created by a Maker God, we are created to be transformed, too. But before we can experience the tiny resurrections of our lives, we often have to sit in the darkness.

It's the moments of being in the dark—in the chrysalis—that shape, change, and form us most.

“Whenever new life grows and emerges, darkness is crucial to the process,” Sue Monk Kidd says. “Whether it's the caterpillar in the chrysalis, the seed in the ground, the child in the womb, or the True Self in the soul, there's always a time of waiting in the dark.”

Our truest selves reflect Christ, who dwells within.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (NIV).

Makoto Fujimura points out that the Greek word for "new creation" is kainos, which he interprets to be a “New Newness, akin to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, but more. Yes, it is transformation, but it is more than that—it is transfiguration.”

In Romans 12:2, we are reminded not to conform to the world's ways but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. The Greek word for “transformed” here is meta-morphoo (the root word for meta-morphosis).

When we look around at the tiny transformations and resurrections that happen within us and around us, we're reminded afresh that we can trust Jesus' resurrection. We see that all beautiful transformation into new life, from what we see in nature to what we experience within our souls, comes from Christ.

“This New Newness breaks into our lives through Christ,” Fujimura says. “Christ's death on the cross is a new beginning; Christ's resurrection is a new beginning.”

The above text is an excerpt from my book Every Season Sacred.

Photo by Calvin Mano on Unsplash

A Prayer for New Things

from Every Season Sacred

O God of transformation and renewal, we thank You for turning death into life.

We thank You for the tiny resurrections all around us. We thank You for the hope of becoming a new creation in Christ.

We confess that we easily get wrapped up in the world's ways. We ask for Your presence in our moments of darkness and waiting, for the times we don't see a way out. Continue to transform us and shape us into Your beautiful image. Give us wings. Amen.

A Prayer for Easter

from To Light Their Way

O resurrected, risen King,
We praise You on this Easter morning
With glad and grateful hearts,
Eager to shout Your glory.
Death could not hold You.
Sin could not destroy You.
For You are God And worthy of every praise!

O Jesus, You continue to make a way
Where there is no way.
As we celebrate Your resurrection power,
We pray our children
Would sing and dance
In the promise that we are Easter people
And we have a living hope in You.

May our children
Bask in the truth
That You have conquered sin and death,
And may that living hope
Spill into all they do, all they meet, all they are.

Lord, You know us by name,
And You do not forget us
Or forsake us.
May our children proclaim Your goodness,
And may they feel Your graciousness
Shine upon their faces
Like the spring dawn breaking through.

In the empty tomb,
We are given life And life abundant!
All the jelly beans and dyed eggs,
Baskets and bunnies
Pale in comparison to You.

O Prince of Peace, we celebrate on this day.
As we eat and gather around the table,
May we remember those who are lonely,
Those who have none to feast with
Or share their table with.

As we eat and gather around the table,
May we remember those who cannot afford
To fill their cupboards.
As we eat and gather around the table,
May we remember those whose lives
Have been marked by violence.
As we eat and gather around the table,
May we pray for all those who are unsafe
In sharing their faith.

As we go out into the world,
May our family live in a way
That proclaims the Good News—
Good news for the poor,
Good news that sets the captive free.

O God, the tomb could not hold You.
Fill our family with a love
That is shared between us
And freely given to everyone we meet.
The earth declares Your glory.
All of creation praises Your name.
And our hearts cry out, "Hallelujah!"

We praise You, O Lord,
As we throw off the sin and the shame of yesterday.
Let us dance in the promise of the new morning
Of today and tomorrow and forevermore!

A Prayer for Good News

from To Light Their Way

Help us remember the unfettered joy of youth
And the happiness that comes
In rejoicing together.

Thank You for the victories,
Big and small,
For the celebrations
Of a fear conquered
Or a friend made.

Thank You for good gifts
Of high-fives and fist bumps,
Of laughter and squeals of joy.
For we are an Easter people,
Eager to celebrate.
Help us never to be so lost
In our own realities that we are too busy
To enter into the joys of childhood.

Let us always invite more to the table.
Let us cultivate confident hearts
And courageous souls.
Let us celebrate!

Let us learn from the uninhibited joy of children.
In their exuberance, may we see ourselves.
May we speak life into our little ones
So that they may know their worth
And be able to call out the good in others.

There’s More…

Easter doesn’t end here.

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Breath Prayer

Monday
INHALE: When I can’t see the way,