On Ash Wednesday, February 14, we begin our forty-day journey toward Easter. Marking our foreheads with dust, we acknowledge that we die and return to the earth. At the same time, the dust traces the life-giving cross indelibly marked on our foreheads at baptism and shapes our identity through life, into death, and for the life to come.
For as much information as we have at our fingertips about the world around us, the life of faith remains filled with mystery. Whenever we go looking for a definitive answer (is it black or white? yes or no? up or down?), we might be surprised to learn that the answer could be neither, both, or something else altogether. Perhaps all this mystery might be serving another purpose?
When Jesus called out from the depth of sadness to his friend Lazarus, suddenly the unimaginable became possible. The God who speaks life into creation is unstoppable. Journeying together in this Lenten season, we’ll take up the task of removing that which holds us back, and preparing for the moment we’ll be set free.
Without a doubt, the circumstances of a global pandemic have conspired to make this Lenten season one to remember. Updates are issued almost by the hour and it’s hard not to feel oppressed by the weight and uncertainty of it all. With all this chaos swirling about, I suspect I’m not alone in feeling cut loose from a secure mooring.