Shane Claiborne on "Holy Week in an Unholy World"

I've been sharing several different blog posts this week from different authors as they reflect on the significance of the cross and Holy Week or Semana Santa as it's known in Latin America.  Today I read this post by Shane Claiborne on the Red Letter Christians blog.  One story he tells was especially gripping.  I'll quote him here:

One of the most powerful Good Friday services we’ve ever had was a few years ago. We carried the cross into the streets and planted it outside the gunshop in our neighborhood. We had our services there. We read the story of Jesus’s death… and heard about the women weeping at the foot of the cross. And then we listened to the women in our neighborhood weep as they shared about losing their kids to gun violence.

Calvary met Kensington.

Afterwords, one woman said to me: “I get it! I get it!” I asked her what she meant. And then she said something more profound than anything I ever learned in seminary: “God understands my pain. God knows how I feel. God watched his Son die too.” Then I realized she was the mother of a nineteen-year-old who had just been murdered on our block.

God understands our pain. That is good theology for Good Friday. And that kind of theology only happens when we connect the Bible to the world we live in. It happens when worship and activism meet. We don’t have to choose between faith and action. In fact we cannot have one without the other.

Let’s get out of the sanctuaries and into the streets.
- See more at: http://www.redletterchristians.org/holy-week-in-an-unholy-world/#sthash.H4TES42l.dpuf

 "One of the most powerful Good Friday services we ever had was a few years ago.  We carried the cross into the streets and planted it outside the gunshop in our neighborhood.  We had our services there.  We read the story of Jesus' death ... and heard about the women weeping at the foot of the cross.  And then we listened to the women in our neighborhood weep as they shared about losing their kids to gun violence.

Calvary met Kensington.

Afterwards, one women said to me: "I get it!  I get it!"  I asked her what she meant.  And then she said something more profound than anything I ever learned in seminary: "God understands my pain.  God knows how I feel.  God watched his Son die too."  Then I realized that she was the mother of a nineteen-year-old who had just been murdered on our block. 

God understands our pain.  That is good theology for Good Friday.  And that kind of theology only happens when we connect the Bible to the world we live in.  It happens when worship and activism meet.  We don't have to choose between faith and action.  In fact we cannot have one without the other.

Let's get out of the sanctuaries and into the streets."

One of the most powerful Good Friday services we’ve ever had was a few years ago. We carried the cross into the streets and planted it outside the gunshop in our neighborhood. We had our services there. We read the story of Jesus’s death… and heard about the women weeping at the foot of the cross. And then we listened to the women in our neighborhood weep as they shared about losing their kids to gun violence.

Calvary met Kensington.

Afterwords, one woman said to me: “I get it! I get it!” I asked her what she meant. And then she said something more profound than anything I ever learned in seminary: “God understands my pain. God knows how I feel. God watched his Son die too.” Then I realized she was the mother of a nineteen-year-old who had just been murdered on our block.

God understands our pain. That is good theology for Good Friday. And that kind of theology only happens when we connect the Bible to the world we live in. It happens when worship and activism meet. We don’t have to choose between faith and action. In fact we cannot have one without the other.

Let’s get out of the sanctuaries and into the streets.
- See more at: http://www.redletterchristians.org/holy-week-in-an-unholy-world/#sthash.H4TES42l.dpuf

One of the most powerful Good Friday services we’ve ever had was a few years ago. We carried the cross into the streets and planted it outside the gunshop in our neighborhood. We had our services there. We read the story of Jesus’s death… and heard about the women weeping at the foot of the cross. And then we listened to the women in our neighborhood weep as they shared about losing their kids to gun violence.

Calvary met Kensington.

Afterwords, one woman said to me: “I get it! I get it!” I asked her what she meant. And then she said something more profound than anything I ever learned in seminary: “God understands my pain. God knows how I feel. God watched his Son die too.” Then I realized she was the mother of a nineteen-year-old who had just been murdered on our block.

God understands our pain. That is good theology for Good Friday. And that kind of theology only happens when we connect the Bible to the world we live in. It happens when worship and activism meet. We don’t have to choose between faith and action. In fact we cannot have one without the other.
- See more at: http://www.redletterchristians.org/holy-week-in-an-unholy-world/#sthash.H4TES42l.dpuf

One of the most powerful Good Friday services we’ve ever had was a few years ago. We carried the cross into the streets and planted it outside the gunshop in our neighborhood. We had our services there. We read the story of Jesus’s death… and heard about the women weeping at the foot of the cross. And then we listened to the women in our neighborhood weep as they shared about losing their kids to gun violence.

Calvary met Kensington.

Afterwords, one woman said to me: “I get it! I get it!” I asked her what she meant. And then she said something more profound than anything I ever learned in seminary: “God understands my pain. God knows how I feel. God watched his Son die too.” Then I realized she was the mother of a nineteen-year-old who had just been murdered on our block.

God understands our pain. That is good theology for Good Friday. And that kind of theology only happens when we connect the Bible to the world we live in. It happens when worship and activism meet. We don’t have to choose between faith and action. In fact we cannot have one without the other.
- See more at: http://www.redletterchristians.org/holy-week-in-an-unholy-world/#sthash.H4TES42l.dpuf