When human power structures refuse to accept the authority of God’s people
Luke 19 45 When Jesus entered the temple, he started chasing out the people who were selling things. 46 He told them, “The Scriptures say, ‘My house should be a place of worship.’ But you have made it a place where robbers hide!”
47 Each day, Jesus kept on teaching in the temple. So the chief priests, the teachers of the Law of Moses, and some other important people tried to have him killed. 48 But they could not find a way to do it, because everyone else was eager to listen to him.
20 One day, Jesus was teaching in the temple and telling the good news. So the chief priests, the teachers, and the nation’s leaders 2 asked him, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you this authority?”
3 Jesus replied, “I want to ask you a question. 4 Who gave John the right to baptize? Was it God in heaven or merely some human being?”
5 They talked this over and said to each other, “We can’t say God gave John this right. Jesus will ask us why we didn’t believe John. 6 And we can’t say it was merely some human who gave John the right to baptize. The crowd will stone us to death, because they think John was a prophet.”
7 So they told Jesus, “We don’t know who gave John the right to baptize.”
8 Jesus replied, “Then I won’t tell you who gave me the right to do what I do.”
Prayer
from origen (184-253 CE)
Let us pray, however, the mercy of the omnipotent God to make us not only hearers of the word, but also doers and to bring upon our souls also a flood of God’s water and destroy in us what God knows should be destroyed, and encourage what God knows should be encouraged, through Christ our Lord and through the Holy Spirit. To God be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Egeria in the Holy land, c. 380 CE
Egeria was a nun from France who was touring the Holy Land in the late 4th century. She was in Jerusalem during Holy Week and provides the only eye witness account of how the early church celebrated.
On Monday, the following day, they carry out in the Anastasis (rotunda built on site assumed to be Christ’s tomb) whatever ceremonies are customarily performed from the first cockcrow until dawn, as well as whatever is done at the third and sixth hours throughout Lent. However, at the ninth hour everyone comes together in the major church or Martyrium, and until the first hour of the night they continually sing hymns and antiphons, and read passages from the Scriptures fitting to the day and the place, always interrupting them with prayers. Vespers is celebrated in the Martyraim, when the hour for it is at hand. The results is that it is already night when the dismissal is given at the Martyrium. As soon as the dismissal has been given, the bishop is led from there to the Anastasis to the accompaniment of hymns. When he has entered the Anastasis, a hymn is sung, a prayer is said, first the catechumens and then the faithful are blessed, and finally the dismissal is given.
The Barefoot Evangelist 