11 Feb 2016
Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Jesus speaks in what sounds like black-and-white terms: “Anyone
who wishes to come after me, must deny himself and take up his cross daily.” We either follow him or we don’t. And Moses has a similar tone: “I have set
before you life and death.” So, choose
one (preferably, life). It’s one or the
other, but not both. Even the psalm
separates people into the “blessed” and the “wicked.” There’s a lot of black-and-white talk in
Scripture this morning.
But, as we know, life isn’t always black-and-white. Even attempting to “return to the Lord”
during Lent isn’t black-and-white; in fact, it’s most often very, very
gray. For example, we’re called to pray
more during Lent. But how much more? Well, it depends . . . how much more do you think you need to pray? The same goes for fasting and almsgiving. How much
fasting? How much almsgiving? Well, it
depends . . . it’s not black-and-white.
There’s no set “formula” for how to “do” Lent.
But right there in that “gray area” is “the cross.” I’d read a book by Bishop Morneau a while ago,
and he described trying to follow God as like being on a foggy meadow; you can’t
see anything; you can feel the ground under you, but you don’t know what’s
coming, so you move forward very slowly; and you just reach your arms out
trying to feel your way through it. And
that sense of being “lost” and wondering how to “do” Lent this year is the
cross we’re asked to carry.
Jesus lays before us a choice: to either accept the “foggy
grayness” of the spiritual journey of Lent, or to just let that path of
conversion go untraveled (at least, until next year). There’s always the choice between the ways of
life and the ways of death. But Jesus
gives us yet another choice: the way of life, or the way of a better life . . . through the cross . .
. through the gray fog of the spiritual journey. What will our choice be . . . today?
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