A Prayer and A Video to Spark Your Thinking: Holy Week 2026
It is Holy Week! Let’s keep it simple today.
I offer you two things… a prayer… and something to spark some thinking (if you’d like!)
In memory of the 30th anniversary of Henri Nouwen’s death, a prayer of his for this week.
By the way, the Henri Nouwen Society is marking this year with a special conference in Toronto, learn more here.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, your disciple Peter wanted to know who would betray you. You pointed to Judas but a little later also to him. Judas betrayed, Peter denied you. Judas hanged himself, Peter became the apostle whom you made the first among equals. Lord, give me faith, faith in your endless mercy, your boundless forgiveness, your unfathomable goodness. Let me not be tempted to think that my sins are too great to be forgiven, too abominable to be touched by your mercy. Let me never run away from you but return to you again and again, asking you to be my Lord, my Shepherd, my Stronghold, and my Refuge. Take me under your wing, O Lord, and let me know that you do not reject me as long as I keep asking you to forgive me. Perhaps my doubt in your forgiveness is a greater sin than the sins I consider too great to be forgiven. Perhaps I make myself too important, too great when I think that I cannot be embraced by you anymore. Lord, look at me, accept my prayer as you accepted Peter’s prayer, and let me not run away from you in the night as Judas did.
Bless me, Lord, in this Holy Week, and give me the grace to know your loving presence more intimately. AMEN.
And only if you want to dig into something more filling…
Here’s a short lecture by John Dominic Crossan, author of many books but one particularly of note during this season written with his dear friend the late Marcus J. Borg, The Last Week.
Why Jesus Was Actually Executed (And Why It Still Matters) with John Dominic Crossan
Dom Crossan begins by asking us to compare the hands of Caesar and the hands of Jesus. It sets up everything that follows. On one side, you’ve got Caesar—holding a spear in his left hand (we call it a scepter now, but it descended from the spear), and in his right hand, the orb of the world. Originally, there was a little bronze Nike on top, the goddess of victory crowning him. The message is clear: I own the world because I took it by force. On the other side, Jesus. Left hand holds a book—not to take you over by force, but by persuasion. And the book is always closed, or if it’s open, it’s facing us, because he’s the norm of the book. He doesn’t need to read it. Right hand? Raised in blessing. Not to own the world, but to bless it. Two radically different ways of seeing the world. And Dom spent an hour unpacking why that difference got Jesus killed.
May you mark a meaningful Holy Week.
And remember, Sunday is coming!
The Rev. John Borthwick