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Lent is underway.  This means we are on the journey toward Palm Sunday, toward the Passion, toward Holy Week, toward the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday and toward Golgotha on Good Friday.  It is a journey of darkness and distress.  It is a journey of destruction, and ultimately of death.  Why would we take such a journey? 

Why would we willingly do things that would bring us closer to depression, that would remind us of the negative states of our situation, or that would remind us of our finitude?  Obviously because we know that the journey does not end on Good Friday, it takes us to Easter.  We take this journey because we know that life and resurrection wait on the other side.  We know that love will triumph, and that our hope will not be in vain.  Our sacrifices will not be for nothing.  The one who stated, “I am the resurrection and the life,” in John 11.25 holds the fate of the world, and our individual fates, in his hands.

But we can’t get to Easter without the journey of Lent.  We can’t get from Palm Sunday to Easter without going through Holy Week, through the Passion, through the Upper Room and through the hill.  So, in order to get to the victory, we pass through the sacrifice, through the hardship, through the suffering.  We know that the good on the other side will be well worth our while.  But I don’t think that is why we go through the suffering.  We do so, I think, to participate in the experiences of Christ and the first disciples.  By coming closer to those experiences, we share in the life of Christ, in the life of God.  Being a Christian isn’t always Easter hams and Christmas day parades.  Sometimes it is suffering and sacrifice.

In the same way in our lives we are aware of this.  If we want to grow in our relationship with God, there will be sacrifice and suffering.  If we want to experience eternal hope that will not let us down, we know that we must travel down the road of denial and death.  In some senses, we must die to our selves, to our own selfish desires and nature, to be risen again with Christ, and participate in the life of God.

May we all find strength for the journeys of Lent, both during this season, and throughout all the seasons of our lives.  With the hope that will not be in vain, I hope that you will

 

Be Well,

 

 

 

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