From Rev. Pat Kriss: Living in Lent
(Posted March 17, 2018)
More information about 2019 Lenten and Easter services are available here.
So here we are, living in the pause between one super storm and the next one, not quite sure what’s coming, but knowing that, after three nor’easters, we seen it all before. These storms have taken away the literal and figurative light, at least temporarily, taken away our assuredness. They have made us hyper-vigilant but for what, we’re not sure. Now there’s talk of yet another one.
We are indeed living in the in between times.
We are living in Lent as applied to our lives on a grander scale.
By definition Lent is a Middle English word for Spring. But It’s hard to tell that by looking out the window right now. What I see there are forsythia bushes flattened down to the ground by the weight of a storm two weeks ago. I wonder will it ever rise up? I see the box tree I planted ten years ago crushed into a stalk by two drifts. Will it be all right?
What this comes down to, like the Lent of our church understanding, is to rely upon our TRUST. This isn’t blind trust. Experience has taught us that Spring will, indeed, come again. That the trees and bushes were created resilient, and will rise. They are built for New England in the in between times of the seasons.
And so are we. God made us to rebound from the storms in life, made us capable of surviving as Christians in that time after the crushing blow of the Crucifixion, and the return of the Light on Easter morning. We are a Holy Saturday people for now. The day after Golgotha we continue to live in the emptiness and silence of a world that has yet to see where Jesus has gone. We continue to express our trust by living his teaching despite a culture that seems to mock our Christian faith as foolish, antiquated in a marketplace that values acquisition at the expense of others. The storms will come. They always do. But we know that, deep within the heart of our being, trust has made us limber, ready to rise again, with the One who taught us that God has inscribed on our own hearts the promise of resurrection and the joy that follows. Come join us this Jazz Sunday as we Holy Saturday people shake off the snows, and rise. -- Pastor Pat Kriss