Revelation 5:11-12
Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain…”
"The risen Christ appeared several times under an aspect which was no longer the one his disciples knew…We should approach all men and women…with the Name of Jesus in our heart and on our lips. We should pronounce His Name over them all, for their real name is the Name of Jesus. Name them with his Name, within His Name, in a spirit of adoration, dedication, and service. Adore Christ in them, serve Christ in them. In many of these men and women – in the malicious, in the criminal – Jesus is imprisoned. Deliver Him by silently recognizing and worshiping Him in them."
[“On the Invocation of the Name of Jesus” by Lev Gillet, a Monk of the Eastern Church, Praying the Name of Jesus]
During this Easter Season when we celebrate for 50 great days the triumph of the Paschal Lamb of God over sin and death, I have found my meditational practice of the Prayer of the Lamb to be like being carried along by the Prayer, riding or resting on the flow of intercession for the world. What comfort there is in that, because otherwise I, and many of us, could feel overwhelmed by urgency for intervention in more than one place in the world or circumstance of need. To pray “Jesus, Lamb of God, have mercy on us” with gentleness and ease is to express profound trust that the effectiveness of intercession does not rest on my shoulders. All that is needed is a place, a location, a vessel through which the Resurrection Life of Yeshua can flow. I say to myself, “Be still. This isn’t about you. Simple pray the Prayer and let the Spirit of the Risen Lord do the work.” No work is necessary on my part.
No work is necessary. Despite our ability to comprehend this mentally, few of us are able to reflect this truth in our behavior in waking life and during meditation. We are too acculturated with the dogma of busy-ness. Whom do we value for their contributions to society or to church? Those with the longest list of accomplishments, those who are able to do so much, those whose schedules are full of worthwhile activities. When was the last time you heard someone praised for only having one thing to do, or for saying no to all but a very few activities? We may envy their choices, but also judge them as being self-centered and negligent of civic responsibilities.
So there is a tension created between the cultural norms regarding doing and busy-ness, and the practice of sitting and being a place where Someone Else is at work. This can show up in how we pray the Prayer of the Lamb at those times when we sit in silence each day. Thoughts crowd in, each with its own sense of urgency. A long “to do” list waves itself before our closed eyes nagging at us about how pressed for time we are. Even the emphasis on production quotas, picked up from the work place, tempts us to evaluate our meditation on the basis of quantitative results.
Meditation is a faith practice and an act of devotion. When we sit in meditation we trust that the One, to whom we are devoted and who is devoted to us, is utterly capable and utterly dependable. So then we practice in such a way that we are attentive to the moment when we recognize self-conflict with those cultural norms of industrious enterprise, and when we spot self-affliction arising from judging ourselves. When we notice this, without holding or judging and with simple acknowledgment of the apparent truth of the situation, then the way is open for a return to ease of flow, openness of heart and surrender of self-concern. Then we are freed of our self-conflict, and we experience what Resurrection Life in Yeshua is.
The Easter Season is a celebration of the Risen Lamb of God in which the Church looks toward the heavenly banquet of the Lamb. Let us feast on the Name of Yeshua/Jesus in our hearts with joy and thanksgiving.
The Rev. Beverly Hosea
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