O Sacred Head, Now Wounded

 via

O sacred Head, now wounded,
with grief and shame weighed down,
now scornfully surrounded
with thorns, Thine only crown.
O sacred Head, what glory,
what bliss till now was Thine!
Yet, though despised and gory,
I joy to call Thee mine.

 What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered
was all for sinners' gain;
mine, mine was the transgression,
but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
'Tis I deserve Thy place;
look on me with Thy favor,
vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

 'Burial of our Lord'

Canterbury Cathedral

Good Friday

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small,
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

     -Isaac Watts

***

'And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses,  erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.  He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.'    - Colossians 2:13-16

***

'So the enemies of human creation are bound and humiliated. Like the captives of war they are dragged at the chariot wheels of the victorious commander. The language is nakedly that of the imperial triumphs in Rome. But note also that the word translated 'disarmed' literally means that Christ on the cross discards, sheds, throws off the weight of the powers that enslave us. As if slipping off a garment, Christ shrugs off the leaden weight of those powers that keep us less than human. And on the cross, so too is nailed, metaphorically, the account that his death has cancelled. He has written off our debt and when we look at him nailed there, what we see is all that we owe in fear and guilt nailed up, with a red line through it.'

      - From 'The Sign And The Sacrifice,' Rowan Williams

 

 

Good Friday

When I survey the wondrous cross

on which the Prince of glory died,

my richest gain I count but loss

and pour contempt on all my pride.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

that were a present far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine,

demands my soul, my life, my all.

- Isaac Watts

Have a blessed Good Friday, friends.

Photo: Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire

Crushed for Our Iniquities

Crucifixion

Anthony van Dyck

via

"Surely he hath borne our griefs,
and carried our sorrows:
yet we esteemed him stricken, 
smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities:
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray:
we have turned - every one - to his own way;
and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked,
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth."

Isaiah 53:4-9, ESV

***

"It's all too easy for devout Christians to imagine [Jesus] as a kind of demigod, striding heroically through the world without a care. Some have even read John's gospel that way...but certainly Matthew is clear that at this crucial moment Jesus had urgent and agitating business to do with his father. He had come this far; he had told them, again and again, that he would be handed over, tortured and crucified; but now, at the last minute, this knowledge had to make its way down from his scripture-soaked mind into his obedient, praying heart. And it is wonderfully comforting (as the writer to the Hebrews points out) that he had to make this agonizing journey of faith, just as we do.

"'If it's possible - please make it that I don't have to drink this cup!' The 'cup' in question, without a doubt, is the 'cup of God's wrath,' as in many biblical passages (Isaiah 51:17, Jeremiah 25:15, and elsewhere). Jesus was resolutely determined to understand this fateful moment in light of the long scriptural narrative that he saw now coming to its climax in his death. But precisely because of that, he realized in a new and devastating way that he was called to go down into the darkness, deeper than anyone had gone before, the darkness of one who, though he was the very son of God, would drink the cup which symbolized God's wrath against all that is evil, all that destroys and defaces God's wonderful world and his image-bearing creatures."       -  Lent for Everyone, N.T. Wright

Worthy is the lamb that was slain.

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Good Friday

'Christ on the Cross'

Eugene Delacroix, 1853

National Gallery London

"The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
    a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
    nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
    a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.

One look at him and people turned away.
    We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
    our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.

We thought he brought it on himself,
    that God was punishing him for his own failures.
 But it was our sins that did that to him,
    that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
    Through his bruises we get healed.

We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
    We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
    on him, on him."

Isaiah 53:2-6 (The Message)

In My Place Condemned He Stood

Man of Sorrows! what a name
For the Son of God, Who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!


Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!


Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
Full atonement can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

'He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.' I Peter 2:24

'God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.'  II Corinthians 5:21

  

"And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing."  Revelation 5:11-12

Good Friday, Fountains Abbey

Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire

 Easter Week at Fountains Abbey
Vaulted arches of the cellarium

Fountains Abbey - the largest monastic ruins in England

I think that Fountains Abbey is my husband's favorite site to visit in England. Not only is the history of Fountains interesting, but the extensive ruins are open to visitors. It's easy to spend several hours there. We've done that twice, and there's still much to see that we didn't get to.


From the National Trust website:


'A dispute and riot at St Mary's Abbey in York led to the founding of Fountains Abbey in 1132. After pleading unsuccessfully to return to the early 6th century Rule of St Benedict, 13 monks were exiled and taken into the protection of Thurstan, Archbishop of York.

He provided them with a site in the valley of the little River Skell in which they could found a new, more devout monastery. Although described as a place "more fit for wild beasts than men to inhabit" it had all the essential materials for the creation of a monastery: shelter from the weather, stone and timber for building, and plenty of water.

Within three years, the little settlement at Fountains had been admitted to the austere Cistercian Order (founded in France in 1098). Under its rules they lived a rigorous daily life, committed to long periods of silence, a diet barely above subsistence level, and wore the regulation habit of coarse undyed sheep's wool (underwear was forbidden), which earned them the name "White Monks."

One of the Abbey's most important developments was the introduction of the Cistercian system of lay brothers. They were usually illiterate and relieved the monks from routine jobs, giving them more opportunity to dedicate their time to God.

Many served as masons, tanners, shoemakers and smiths, but their chief role was to look after the Abbey's vast flocks of sheep, which lived on the huge estate stretching westwards from Fountains to the Lake District and northwards to Teesside. 

Without the lay brothers, Fountains could never have attained its great wealth or economic importance.'  Read more of the article here. 

My favorite Fountains Abbey photo

At the top of one of the arches

The spring house

I think this is the most often photographed portion of the Fountain Abbey ruins

 The  mill - Photo from The National Trust

The oldest parts of the mill are actually older than the visible parts of the Abbey. The mill, the best-preserved water mill in England, was a working mill for 850 years. It's the only 12th century corn mill in Britain.

Although we saw the mill on our last visit to Fountains Abbey, we didn't get photos because our camera card was filled by that time. One should always carry a memory stick or second camera card. Then again, it's hardly our fault that England has so many interesting places to visit!

Fountains Abbey is not far from Ripon. Visiting Ripon Cathedral and Fountains Abbey on the same day is a bit overwhelming, but neither should be missed. Fountains Abbey definitely takes two visits at least.

While there, we watched a really cute video, 'The Silent Years' about a novice monk. Here's a wee taste of it that I found on YouTube. Trust me, it was a lot funnier before they decided it needed narration.




Hope you have a good weekend. :-)

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