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?