The Lenten Journey Day 34

Joseph Langford writes an engaging essay from the perspective of Christ speaking to a person and by implication, all people. The monologue draws from an interpretation of Jesus’ words on the cross, “I am thirsty.” The interpretation is that beyond His physical thirst, Jesus was expressing His desire for every person to know His unconditional love, he thirst for us. The interpretation is bolstered by an expanded reading of Psalm 69 often understood to have messianic implications.

Langford relies a lot on one verse to build his thought, but the basic premise that Christ does love beyond our sin and shame, taking us as we are is Biblically undeniable. Langford does well in not only presenting Christ’s desire for people to come to Him, but also explaining where the change in us comes. “ You don’t need to change to believe in my love, for it will be your belief in my love that will change you.” This subtlety is central to understanding the love of Christ. We should be and should call others to the love of Christ, believing in Christ enough to know that His patient love, patiently shapes us and others into who we are all created to be. We just have to believe, trust, and wait.

The Lenten Journey Day 33

“When we allow ourselves to feel fully how we are being acted upon, we can come in touch with a new life that we were not even aware was there.” - Henri Nouwen

In his essay, Nouwen a priest, chaplain and writer takes up an extremely relatable situation. He recounts the story of a friend who had been active in social causes and then was struck with cancer in his 50s. The man was struggling with his worth to God with is sudden inactivity. Nouwen goes on to differentiate between action and passion. Passion comes after action, he says, it is the waiting for the response to the action. Our passion is revealed in how we wait for what happens next. Waiting is not doing nothing, it is that process of what we are becoming.

“those that wait on the Lord, they will renew their strength.”

The Lenten Journey Day 32

Dorothy Soelle’s essay pulls from a passage in Elie Weisel’s seminal work Night. Weisel writes from his personal experience in Auschwitz and Soelle draws upon his reflections. The central passage from Weisel that guides Soelle’s thoughts is his memory of a hanging in the concentrations camp at the hands of the SS. Weisel describes in gut wrenching detail the death of a young boy and a man standing behind Weisel posing the question, “where is God.” Weisel’s internal dialogue responds with, “Here he is… he is hanging here on this gallows.”

Soelle points to an inner relationship between the reality of Christ and the reality of those suffering. We find, Soelle says strongly, that God suffers with the suffering and his seen in the one suffering as well. In all of the talk about finding God it is sobering to think where we might find Him. If we find Him on the cross, shouldn’t we also find him in the shelter, the refugee camp, and the cancer wing of the hospital. This is not a glorification of suffering, at least from my point of view, but a call to look for Christ where He is most likely found.

The Lenten Journey Day 31

Today’s essay is actually an excerpt from the book “Jayber Crow” by author, farmer and poet Wendell Berry. In the passage Crow, the title character, speaks of his association with the crowd at the foot of the cross. Crow is tempted to be just like the throng and call for Christ to come down off the cross and reveal his true power. But Crow laments what he knows to be true, “I knew the answer. I knew it a long time before I could admit it, for all the suffering of the world is in it. He didn’t , he hasn’t, because from the moment he did, he would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be His slaves.”

Giving into their and admittedly our worldly demands would have made Christ our overlord instead of our beloved Lord and Savior. We claim to want God to step in and just stop all the bad stuff, but we really want is what that crowd wanted. We want Jesus to be the hero of our opinions of OUR bad situation. Christ appears weak because that is His strength. It is in the ordinary that we should look and will truly find Jesus.

The Lenten Journey Day 30

Edith Stein delivers a short essay centered around Christ’s words in Gethsemane, “Thy will be done.” She asserts this is the regulatory measure of following Christ. Her writing is magnified by a short description of her own Spiritual journey. She was born into Judaism, turned to atheism in her teens, later converted to Catholicism as a Discalced Caremilite nun, and died at the age of 51 in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The essay reads as a charge to her fellow nuns and friars. The surrendered will of Christ, Stein writes, is evident in His obedience, poverty, and purity. From the cross Christ calls for the allegiance of His followers and the answer Stein urges is, “Lord, where else should we go. You have the words of eternal life.”

God’s will is for some a grandiose mystery that must be discovered and followed with pinpoint accuracy, and rigid attention to detail. For others it is a pious thought that few, if any, every attain and so it sounds good but is not practical. For Christ, God’s will, was a daily call to surrender, intimacy, and listening. It is a pursuit to follow the two great commandments, love of God and of others. It is not God’s will that we all die on a Roman cross, or serve others in a nunnery. It is His will that today we might lean in to a supreme love for Him and a humbled, servant minded, love of others.