The Lenten Journey

    We’re headed toward the homestretch of Lent, the season of introspection, self-examination and re-alignment with the Holy, and every year it strikes a bit harder that Lent is less a season and more a journey.  That is, it’s not just something that we’re invited to step into walk around a bit, as if we are looking around and learning in a museum, but it is more like road that we choose to take as part of the greater path of our own lives.  It is less a self-contained unit of time or series of disciplines, and more a journey with Christ toward the Cross.
    Of course, this is not a new concept, and I am only reiterating what the Tradition teaches, but in this day and age where we try to maintain control and we like to organize and segment our lives (and faith), it is easy for us to simply tell ourselves, “I can do anything for 40 days,” while missing the point that Lent is intended to shape us and our living faith.
    This quote by Bishop Will Willimon is on the front of our bulletin for Sunday, “The toughest task is to live with unexpected, unwanted answers.”  I believe this is a true statement, maybe more true than we’d like it to be, because it reminds us of the challenge and invitation of faith.  So often the answers we want and expect are not the ones that we are given.  The diagnosis doesn’t make sense or that the accident was not really anyone’s fault.  What we believe is best for us may not be what really is best, or our desires are not our needs and/or our needs are not necessarily our desires.  That ultimately, in these lives and on the journey of faith, we have little control...and it is a tough task to live with unexpected, unwanted answers.”
    Interesting enough, there are many who would and do argue with God.  They’ll fight for their perspective and the answers they want.  They will hold onto their truth at all costs, while the world (and God) moves on.  And for folks such as these it is the toughest task for they refuse to have a new way revealed, much less accept something new.
    And yet, there are also folks who are able to deal with the unwanted and unexpected, even if they don’t like what they face.  There are those who find themselves facing life’s hardships and even terminal diagnoses with grace, boldness, determination, and peace.  Those who are able to step back and compose themselves, almost as if to brush themselves off and turn a different direction, then chart a new course.  They receive the unexpected and unwanted in a way that almost seems that they take it in stride.
    In reflecting upon these two responses in light of this quote, I’ve been reminded that the difference really comes when we let God enter the picture, or should I say it comes when we allow God’s grace and love to lead.
    I served a congregation in which there was a woman whose family had been sent to Siberia as part of Stalin’s horrific rule.  Though she didn’t speak much of this period in her life, she lost almost all of her family and she nearly died of hunger, thirst, and exhaustion.  I have often thought about the many options she had in responding.  That is, she could have been bitter with God and angry, or she could have entered life with God and looked for God in the midst of the suffering.  She chose the latter.
    The blessing that I received decades later was that this became the way she approached life.  She looked for God in the midst of every situation, and in doing so the task of receiving unexpected and unwanted answers just didn’t seem to have as much impact on her as it did for others.  She was able to rest in her faith that God was with her, and the answer she received would be the answer needed for God is a redemptive and fully present God who makes a way.  Because she’d experienced this Truth is such a startling way, it became a way of life for her.  Subsequently, this way of living was and is a witness to many.

    In John’s Gospel (John 14), Jesus is talking with His disciples, and Thomas says to Jesus, “Lord, we don’t know where we are going, how can we know the way (to the place You prepare for us, Jesus)?  Jesus answers, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  
    Soon after that Jesus was taken away, beaten and killed.  They had experienced His way of healing, wholeness, and mercy.  They had witnessed his miracles and blessings, and in the end they watched as He approached his unwanted answer of death, and Christ showed them the way.
    I imagine that when the disciples looked back after the resurrection, they reflected upon the way Jesus approached life, and they saw that in all things He trusted God.  I imagine that they put the pieces together, and they realized that His life was a journey of faith, and that that journey became a witness to the way of true life.


    In my friend that was shaped at such a young age by such horrific situations I saw that indeed her life was a witness to the same kind of journey of faith.  It was a witness to the way of Christ, and in living this journey Christ’s light shone through her.
    In the same way, I think that this time of Lent is intended to teach us that same way of living.  It is a journey where we learn to trust in God, where we look to Christ to show us the way, where we align our perspectives to understand that it’s about trusting God despite the unexpected and unwanted.  For in doing so, God finds a way to take that trust, and take us, and not just form our lives and our living, but also reveal His light as a witness to all, even through us.


What has God taught you during this Lenten Journey?  What part of Christ’s way and witness resonate with you?  What can you do to more faithfully live out that way and witness?

The Scriptural Way of the Cross -- part I

    Yesterday was Palm Sunday, the day when Christians celebrate the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem.  Through this celebration, we entered on the road to the Cross...to the execution of the Christ for the salvation of the world.
    Traditionally, Christians have participated in a spiritual exercise known as “The Stations of the Cross.”  “The Stations” recount Jesus’ steps on the Via Dolorosa, the road that led from his condemnation to his death.  In cathedrals across the world The Stations have been depicted in stained glass, paintings, and wood carvings, and pilgrimages have been made to participate in The Stations at these cathedrals.
    In 1991, Pope John Paul II publicly named that the traditional “Stations” were a mix of scripture and tradition, and as such created what is known as the “Scriptural Way of the Cross,” which follows the scriptural story of Christ’s way to the Cross.  It is said that Pope John Paul had a representation of “The Way” installed in a room at the Vatican, and he would follow “The Way” at least once a day.

    During this Holy Week, I will be sharing brief meditations on each of the 14 stations of the Scriptural Way of the Cross, and I invite you to join me on the journey

   1. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane:

    Jesus has just come from washing the Disciples’ feet and sharing the Passover Feast, through which He revealed that He was the Passover Lamb and in which He invited them and us to remember and participate in the same meal again and again.  Imagine the power of such an act?  That HE would be the Paschal Lamb, the innocent One who would die for the sins of the world.
    He left the Table with a mix of emotions and led a small group of them to the Garden of "Gethesemane.”  “Gethsemane” is translated to mean “Olive Press.”  On that sight Olives were

pressed for their oil, and the way they pressed out the oil was that a donkey was used to move a large millstone which pressed the olives, then the oil dripped down a trough into a container.  The crushed olives were then placed in baskets with large stones on them, pushing every last ounce of oil from the pulp.

     As Jesus prayed in the garden at that mill stone, we can only imagine the weight of what he was feeling that night.  It was literally the weight of the world pressing down on Him, as he waited for what was to come.  Even worse, the disciples fell asleep in Jesus’ time of need, their sin revealed and reminding us of how we leave Christ again and again. 

  It was our sin that pressed down on Jesus that night.  As we enter this Holy Week, name those sins and ask for forgiveness.

   2. Jesus is betrayed by Judas and arrested:

    We can just imagine our Savior praying for relief, but then His senses kicked in, and He knew.  They were coming for Him.  Even worse, they were coming for Him led by one of His own.  His heart had to have been torn, knowing that Judas had betrayed Him, and yet He also knew what was coming.  He knew that it had to be this way.
    Judas approaches, and the sign of our affection became the sign of betrayal.  It was with a kiss that Judas revealed the Messiah.  In that sign of welcome Jesus exit began.

    As the mob approached the disciples awoke.  Alert and on the defensive, they sprang to action and jumped in front of Jesus.  Peter grabbed his sword and struck.  Blood and flesh flew as the ear of one of the guards falls to the ground.

    “Enough!,” Jesus shouted.  “Those who live by the sword, will die by the sword!”  And he picked up

the ear, and the Creator restores that which was severed.
    “You have come for me.  Even though you could have taken me any day in the temple, you choose to come in the dark to perform this dark deed.  Do what you will...”
    They led Him away into the darkness, and as they did, darkness enveloped the earth, for all Creation moaned at what was to come.

    Imagine and pray about this scene.  Who are you in the story?  Are you Judas the betrayer?  The sleepy and reactionary disciples?  The guards following orders to arrest Jesus?  Maybe even the one whose ear was restored?  Who are you?  What might God be teaching you by sharing with you, this Truth?

   3. Jesus is condemned by the Sanhedrin:
    It was a trial set up by the religious leaders of the day.  They were THE Jewish High Priests.  They were the ones called to defend the faith from every enemy, and if we are honest with ourselves and them, from their perspective, they were justified in their actions.  Jesus’ teachings turned their beliefs on its head, for Jesus was opening the door for all.
    Such was not the understanding of the chosen people.  They were God’s people, chosen to keep God’s law and commandments and stand in the way of anyone who spoke or acted to the contrary.
    So when Jesus interrupted the tradition of the selling of livestock for the sacrifice in the temple court, it was too much.  They were on the brink of an attack anyway, but that pushed them over the edge.  He had to be stopped.  So they sent the guards to arrest Him, and they set up a trial, like they’d done before.
    After all, He did claim to be the Son of God.  Blasphemy!  He did break the Sabbath teachings.  Unheard of by a Rabbi!  He did seem to twist the teachings away from tradition.  Threatening indeed!

    So they call him forward, and try to get him to claim his Kingship.  At first, he turns it back on them.  As only He could do, he turned their questions around and frustrated their efforts, until

finally, He spoke the Truth.

    How many times have we judged others because of our beliefs?  How often have those judgments meant that others suffered?  Were they the beliefs of God, or were they really our own beliefs self-imposed as the beliefs of our God?