i-Llan: 24th March 2024 – Holy Week and the Valley of Baca

A reflection on two verses from Psalm 84 and their relevance to the spiritual pilgrimage of Holy Week.
The podcast mentions this prayer, a litany of the disciples of the servant
from Andhra Theological College, Hyderabad, South India:
Help us to follow you on the road to Jerusalem, to set our faces firmly against friendly suggestions for a safe, expedient life, to embrace boldly the way of self-offering, of life given for others’ gain:
Help us to follow you, Christ the servant.

Help us to follow you into the city, to claim its whole life for God. whose image man bears, to confront the ambitions of the power-hungry, the inhuman orthodoxy of the legalist, with the startling message of your present action, your living power:
Help us to follow you, Christ the servant.

Help us to follow you into the temple of your chosen people, to erase from the worship of your Church all that hinders the sense of your presence, the free flow of your Word, to open up your house so that it may be a house of prayer for all people:
Help us to follow you. Christ the servant.

Help us to follow you into the upper room to share your meal of bread and cup, to accept our common place in your one Body, broken to create a new Man:
Help us to follow you, Christ the servant.

Help us to follow you into the garden, to watch with you, ever vigilant for signs of the dawning of your new day, to struggle unsparingly to understand and to carry our your perfect will:
Help us to follow you, Christ the servant.

Help us to follow you into the judgement hall, to stand mocked and condemned for daring to speak direct of divine forgiveness, daring to claim God’s personal commissioning, daring to disrupt the plans of unscrupulous leaders for the control of the masses; to stand for those whose right to stand has been usurped:
Help us to follow you, Christ the servant.

Help us to follow you even unto the Cross, to share in carrying your cross like Simon the African, to recognise our life in your death, our hope in your self-spending love, to die to all within us that is not born of your love:
Help us to follow you, Christ the servant.

Help us to follow you out of the dark tomb. to share daily your resurrection life, to be renewed daily in your image of love, to be used daily as your new Body in your service to the world:
Help us to follow you, Christ the servant. Amen

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