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For LENT 2026, we are adopting and adapting a worship resource from Sanctified Art. We hope you find our Easter journey meaningful.
Each week in Rock the Week, we will share a devotion such as the one below. This is the weekly devotional will align with the Sunday theme and message.
Fifth Week in Lent Devotion
As we move toward Holy Week, we acknowledge the ways Jesus’ ministry was increasingly at odds with the religious leaders who prioritized loyalty to legality and perceived Jesus’ teachings as a threat. While Jesus is teaching in the temple, some scribes and Pharisees interrupt to put both him and a woman caught in adultery on trial. Their questioning intensifies as they cite Mosaic Law and put the woman’s fate in Jesus’ hands. Instead of focusing on punishment, Jesus flips the script and invites each person to consider their own sin; Jesus defuses the spectacle by condemning no one. Much of Jesus’ teachings were grounded in his understanding of the Torah; however, many of his actions called for reinterpreting the law. As we wrestle with our own rules, we should ask, “What is the most just, merciful, and faithful interpretation?”
Also, add a new community devotional activity to your calendars for this Lenten season.
- March 22, Burning of Our Prayer Flags
- March 29, Palm Sunday and the Disposition of Ashes From Our Prayer Flags
- April 5, Easter and Creating New Prayer Flags (Write on your flag what you want to see or experience resurrected.)
The idea of sending messages through the air via writings on cloth can be traced back over 2000 years to a shamanistic tradition in what is now called Tibet. This activity originally was thought to appease the gods. Later, flags were integrated into Buddhism with writings of prayers and mantras on them. Today, they are hung with the belief that these good wishes will be carried by the wind, spreading goodwill and kindness to all.
Over time the tradition has been respectfully adopted, and today, prayer flags are hung by numerous cultures and communities across the world. Some Native American tribes hang flags with tobacco tied to them.
Why are we using prayer flags at SR? Several years ago, they were introduced to our church by a couple who were taken with the practice and shared the idea with our congregation. We are grateful they did, and we continue to enrich our experience with ritual.
The SR way incorporates the original intentions of sending voice and spirit through the wind. However, our flags are scraps of cloth and are not hung in any particular order, nor are they of any specific color. This Sunday, several years’ prayers will be burned in the center of the labyrinth after church. On the 29th, those ashes will be distributed to the congregation with wishes of peace and calm.
On Easter Sunday, at both services, we will write our individual good wishes and hopes for ourselves and the world and hang them on our dar-ding structure. Think about the power of this group prayer and what you would like to send into the wind, hoping to resurrect a world of peace and calm.
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