Lent is the season of the church (40 days plus Sundays) when we prepare for the celebration of the resurection of Jesus, or Easter. It historically has been a time in the church where God's people repent, fast, pray, and come face to face with their own frailty and need for God's grace and mercy.
Personally, Lent is my favorite church season. It seems to fit perfectly how I often feel in these cold, dark, long, dog-days of winter. Honestly, I think Lent captures how the faith journey often feels. Wilderness like. A journey that begs us to ask more questions than one that provides a lot of answers. It's a season that calls God's people to stay close together-to journey hand in hand together-after all facing the darkness of the world, of our lives, our our own sin, is safer in the company of family. And God's people are family. At the same time, Lent is a journey we also take alone-a journey where we walk arm and arm with God. A journey where we are called to work on our soul...to do the hard heart work that our faith journey summons of us at times.
We fast-not to prove we are strong or appear more holy or that we can last 40 without facebook or coffee, but we fast remembering how hungry we are for God to intervene...we fast and go without because we stand in solidarity with God's people who go without everyday....we fast because sometimes (almost always) less is more and by simplifiying we make room for God in our lives and world.
We repent- The hebrew word for "repent" calls us to return...return to God and turn away from the things that seperate us from God. We repent admitting how frail we are and how BIG God is. We repent not out of obligation, but because we are so dependent on a loving God who showers us with love and grace and mercy each day. We repent, knowing God through Jesus, sets us free from our Sin, shame, hurt, and ultimeltely death.
We pray-we pray because we can not make it through the wilderness without God's guidance. We pray together and apart. We pray because we have a God who hears us (our tears, our anger, our joy, our questions...) and answers us. We pray because when the journey is too long and too dark we have a God who promises to never leave us. We pray for those who cannot pray for themselves and pray for things that are sometimes too deep for our own words.
We cry out for justice-at Lent we remember (and act on behalf of) those in our family who are hungry, sick, greiving, lonely, lost, living under opression, and all those crying out for justice to come quickly to their homes, communities, and lives. Our God is a just God. A God who calls all people and claims them as beloved and chosen. A God who desires all people to have enough and desires all people to have the oppertunity to flourish and grow. The lenten journey calls us to have our hearts broken over injustice and compels us into doing something about it.
"you are dust and to dust you will return". I will say that several hundred times tomorrow. I will say it as I mark preschoolers heads with a cross of water. I will say it over and over again as the very young and very old, the thriving and those just suriving...all who come to enter the journey. I will say it as I dip my fingers in ashes and mark a cross (a messy, dirty, imperfect cross) on people's forheads.
And as I say it over and over I will undoubtly be brought to tears once or twice as I remember just how powerful those words are to say aloud...we are human: frail, dependent, and so very imperfect...we were once nothing and someday when our days are done here on earth we will once again be nothing. But, we are also God's. So, though we journey and wander for 40 days in the wilderness we remember we know the end of the story. That God's Spirit lives in us, that God has claimed us in baptism and showered us with so much grace and mercy that we are sopping wet, that our loving heavely parent promises that though we are "just dust" we are loved by God and that is more than enough.
I don't know how this random rant finds you today? Perhaps rejoicing at a new beginning, perhaps grieving, perhaps lonely or disoriented, perhaps in need of a remider of how great God's grace is, or perhaps in need of a good challenge or kick in the butt. However it finds you, I pray you will enter the Lentern Journey. Return this Lent.
Psalm 51
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
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