If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
Jesus suggests that the Passover setting contributes additional significance to his coming death. Is God about to accomplish a new kind of deliverance?
There is something powerful about saying "I'm sorry." Lent forces us to come to grips with the need to both give and receive apologies.
In the end, we may find that in the light of God's love, we are mere toddlers. We're not sure of the words we speak. We're not sure we know what we mean when we say love.
To me, the most comforting part of Holy Week is not the waving of triumphal palms on one Sunday morning, or the flowers and joyous hymns on the next. It's what happens in between.
Still, echoes of all those Lenten 'shoulds' reverberate through my mind and heart. If I am to strike 'discipline' from my theological lexicon, then what am I to do this Lent?
When a life sentence stands between a child and redemption, it's a cross of sorrow we all bear. When we adults allow the penalty to get the best of an imprisoned child, we all lose.
So the celebration of Easter is not about giving up Lent -- just like Lent wasn't about giving up Easter. It is all part of the same holy rhythm of discerning enough and learning what life together really means.
A couple years ago I thought, why should college basketball fans have all the fun while we Christians sit around giving up chocolate? Thus Lent Madness was born.
My doubt, it will turn to dust. And so too my faith. Both proved right or wrong in their ways--either because it's all only dust, or because then we will see face to face. My sin, to dust. My hypocrisy, to dust.
If Lent is in trouble, it's only because we're in trouble, so busy trying to make or keep or save our lives that we fail to notice that God has already saved us and has already freed us.
But allow me a Lenten season confession of a penchant for the practical, the rational, and the empirical. I love science. I always have. Science does not depend on belief.
We, too, have a chance to think things over, whether or not we really stop or slow down our normal lives for a period of time.
As we renew our Lenten resolutions at the midpoint of this season, perhaps we might consider doing so as Pope Paul III did centuries ago -- reflecting on Michelangelo's Last Judgment.
Taking Lent seriously means recognizing and seeking to break those fasts. It means not taking the Easter celebration and relief for granted.
While many choose to journey through Lent with fasting or generosity as the tools for considering our human dustiness, I choose to journey into the wild finitude with words.
My faith was formed that evening, not by the bitter betrayals, but in the love of the women. I think about that night each Lent, as we walk toward that treacherous path with Jesus.
