Thursday, March 10, 2011

Stir Crazy

It turns out if I'm used to running or biking or at least going somewhere for work each day, and then I have one day with none of those because it's intermittently rainy and there's no work assignment, it gets pretty bad around 4:30, especially if I also expected to hear back from another seminary and didn't. I'm about to go to the grocery store (after 5 now)and almost bursting with the excitement of leaving the house. I did go out to get the mail, but apparently that wasn't enough.

Just wanted to get that out before I settled down to something lent-y.

So. The main thing Christians need to remember about Easter, and thus about Lent, is that it's the most important thing in our religion. Christmas has become a bigger holiday in many ways, but it celebrates Jesus' birthday, and we all have one of those. Easter celebrates his resurrection, which is at the heart of everything Christians are supposed to believe. And it was scary and powerful and dark, nothing to do with pastel colors and bunnies. At Easter we celebrate, and during Lent we anticipate, the emptiness of the tomb, the gaping hole where his body should have been, the power of his absence. The question marks he left in his wake. His return and all that it means for the world and for us. We must make sure we focus on what we are really honoring, not the trappings that have come in since. Let's all take these days to honor the stinging power of God's love, the depressing Friday when for a moment he left, and the sharp blade of mercy that tore the curtain in two.

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