We now stand well within the 40 days of Lent-the kind of Lent we have never experienced with the personal and cultural impositions being made upon people around our globe. With God's help, we are adjusting, surviving, praying, seeking. We know that the Savior loves us so strongly as is lifted in Matthew 27:45.
"At noon the whole country was covered with darkness, which lasted for three hours. At about three o'clock, Jesus cried out with a loud shout, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani!" which means 'My God, my God, why did you abandon me?' Those words will surely bring us closer to His bleeding side.
If we dare walk with Him in these Holy days, may we sincerely be true to the shocking concerns and demands of them, as suggested by Daniel Denton in his graphic poem:
In the Light of His Gift
Lent is..
A time for reaching...
Like daffodils penetrating fog-bond soil
Like geese returning against a headwind
Like beggars grabbing a handful of bread
Or a Traveler destined for Jerusalem.
A time for releasing...
Outgrown clothes
Bandages from healed wounds
Friends who choose a different path
Or a Son hammered into a windswept hill.
A prelude for raising...
As a conductor taping a baton
As a breeze bears the scent of warm earth
As a child stirs beneath dawn-drenched covers
Or a Cry shatters darkness at the twelfth hour.
HYMN-O LOVE THAT WILT NOT LET ME GO
O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red, life that shall endless be.
PRAYER
Jesus, in light of your gift, let the journey be for us;
a time for REACHING.....for all You wish for us;
a place for RELEASING.....all which is unlike You;
a prelude for RAISING.....our deadness to new life. Amen!
Rev. Donald Hodges