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Lent 2021: Bless This Mess
As we prepare for Lent 2021, we're very aware that the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic coincided with last year's Lenten season. Maybe you remember the church sign that went viral: "I didn't mean to give up THIS much for Lent!"
Here we are, it's Lent again, and the Pandemic is still with us, threatening our wellbeing on many levels. Political division in our country is still with us, too, maybe worse than many of us can remember. Consequences of racism are still with us, some of us maybe realizing in a new way what a thorny, persistent bedevilment it is. It's Lent again in our world, and God knows, it's a mess.
The good news of Jesus Christ is that God knows it's a mess. God knows our frailties, how we mess up. Out of love for us, God in Jesus Christ joined us in this mess, to lift us from its grip on us. And in Christ God defeated the powers of sin and death, the forces which try to persuade us that the mess is all there is or ever will be.
Our Lenten theme video notes how the season of Lent coincides with the arrival of Spring. Spring and Lent are not the same thing. Yet, Nature's way of shedding the gray dormancy of winter with the colorful life of Spring does seem to illuminate God's way of shedding the dreary weight of sinfulness with the love, hope, justice, and light of the new life we have in Christ. Even if you're not a fan of tea or of coloring Easter eggs, we hope you enjoy the gentle invitation this theme gives us to lean into God's love in these next several weeks.
Last year in Lent and during the shutdown, many of us cleaned drawers and closets, basements and garages, reducing some of the mess around us. Paying attention to a mess gives us a chance to reconstruct, to reset, to begin afresh. This is what the Lenten practices of prayer, Scripture reading, fasting, and service can allow: a time to confess what we have done and what we have left undone, a time accept that life is messy and at the same time to invite God to transform us and our world ever more toward the vision of light and love we see in our Savior.
God bless this mess. God bless this Lent.
Here we are, it's Lent again, and the Pandemic is still with us, threatening our wellbeing on many levels. Political division in our country is still with us, too, maybe worse than many of us can remember. Consequences of racism are still with us, some of us maybe realizing in a new way what a thorny, persistent bedevilment it is. It's Lent again in our world, and God knows, it's a mess.
The good news of Jesus Christ is that God knows it's a mess. God knows our frailties, how we mess up. Out of love for us, God in Jesus Christ joined us in this mess, to lift us from its grip on us. And in Christ God defeated the powers of sin and death, the forces which try to persuade us that the mess is all there is or ever will be.
Our Lenten theme video notes how the season of Lent coincides with the arrival of Spring. Spring and Lent are not the same thing. Yet, Nature's way of shedding the gray dormancy of winter with the colorful life of Spring does seem to illuminate God's way of shedding the dreary weight of sinfulness with the love, hope, justice, and light of the new life we have in Christ. Even if you're not a fan of tea or of coloring Easter eggs, we hope you enjoy the gentle invitation this theme gives us to lean into God's love in these next several weeks.
Last year in Lent and during the shutdown, many of us cleaned drawers and closets, basements and garages, reducing some of the mess around us. Paying attention to a mess gives us a chance to reconstruct, to reset, to begin afresh. This is what the Lenten practices of prayer, Scripture reading, fasting, and service can allow: a time to confess what we have done and what we have left undone, a time accept that life is messy and at the same time to invite God to transform us and our world ever more toward the vision of light and love we see in our Savior.
God bless this mess. God bless this Lent.