Lenten Blog: Post One
during this season of lent, we have invited some of the many voices at journey to contribute to our blog... to share their thoughts and experiences about lent. enjoy!
Our selves are violently put upon in stories of life and death, creation and new creation. Truths that we once held simplistically about how the world works, who has power, and how power is held are instantly overthrown with the one intrusive act of kneeling quietly, and being imposed upon by the story of God and God’s own tragic walk outside the walls of the city, and the triumph of empires, and religions, and individuals, and selfishness – of sin – over this God. The cross we hold in our flesh is formed by ashes: ashes that have been held for a year, dormant, waiting, and still, and suddenly with the sunrise, the ashes like us are called upon for the sudden rearrangement of the world, and world’s order. Suddenly, while we partied and celebrated, and lived and were life-filled up until the day before, when we wake on Ash Wednesday we find the world moving with intention towards the place of death, and not just the death of others which is intrusive enough, but the death of God, which is intrusive to all. But we find much to our protests, to our greatest fears, and our stupid selfishness, that we do not wish to die in this way. We do not wish to have our lives remade by God. We wish that the party continued unabated. We are scared of being open with God. We are forgetful of God too often, and when the time comes to be reminded of God, we protest: “anything but this;” “this is too much;” “God should leave us alone.”
The imposition has begun. Now for 40 days our journey towards the cross is symbolized in our actions: things that we have taken up as new practices, others that we have put down as old practices. We are hoping that by giving up something we are making the death of Jesus a story that we don’t just hold in our mind, but is instead a story that we tell year after year with our lives. And so, we do something with the best of intention. We give up sugar, or alcohol, or red meat, or negativity. We add a discipline or a devotion. We attempt to live out cross and resurrection in new and creative ways that we have forgotten over the last year. This is the story of Lent. Our imagination has lost its edge; we have forgotten how to be God’s people, forgotten too easily that the call of Jesus is the call of the self-emptying love of the cross, and Lent is the imposition of the cross into our imagination once again. Like the process of birth, and the violent work of creation, our lives are being remade into the life of God reflected in the ultimate hope of his death. Our stupid selfishness is matched by the ignorant, offensive cross of God who loves “wastefully.”
- Dallas Gingles
Our selves are violently put upon in stories of life and death, creation and new creation. Truths that we once held simplistically about how the world works, who has power, and how power is held are instantly overthrown with the one intrusive act of kneeling quietly, and being imposed upon by the story of God and God’s own tragic walk outside the walls of the city, and the triumph of empires, and religions, and individuals, and selfishness – of sin – over this God. The cross we hold in our flesh is formed by ashes: ashes that have been held for a year, dormant, waiting, and still, and suddenly with the sunrise, the ashes like us are called upon for the sudden rearrangement of the world, and world’s order. Suddenly, while we partied and celebrated, and lived and were life-filled up until the day before, when we wake on Ash Wednesday we find the world moving with intention towards the place of death, and not just the death of others which is intrusive enough, but the death of God, which is intrusive to all. But we find much to our protests, to our greatest fears, and our stupid selfishness, that we do not wish to die in this way. We do not wish to have our lives remade by God. We wish that the party continued unabated. We are scared of being open with God. We are forgetful of God too often, and when the time comes to be reminded of God, we protest: “anything but this;” “this is too much;” “God should leave us alone.”
The imposition has begun. Now for 40 days our journey towards the cross is symbolized in our actions: things that we have taken up as new practices, others that we have put down as old practices. We are hoping that by giving up something we are making the death of Jesus a story that we don’t just hold in our mind, but is instead a story that we tell year after year with our lives. And so, we do something with the best of intention. We give up sugar, or alcohol, or red meat, or negativity. We add a discipline or a devotion. We attempt to live out cross and resurrection in new and creative ways that we have forgotten over the last year. This is the story of Lent. Our imagination has lost its edge; we have forgotten how to be God’s people, forgotten too easily that the call of Jesus is the call of the self-emptying love of the cross, and Lent is the imposition of the cross into our imagination once again. Like the process of birth, and the violent work of creation, our lives are being remade into the life of God reflected in the ultimate hope of his death. Our stupid selfishness is matched by the ignorant, offensive cross of God who loves “wastefully.”
- Dallas Gingles
posted by LukeMiller at 9:53 PM
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