End of the Road?

By any standard of our world, our Lenten journey should have come to an awful, painful end yesterday.  His ministry was ended emphatically on a cross.  Perhaps he caused a little bit of a stir while traveling the highways and byways of Galilee and Judea.  Maybe he did enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame in Jerusalem.  But to what end?  So he could be executed beside a couple of crooks?  All of the teaching, healing, preaching, loving, challenging of Jesus was for naught the cynics and doubters, scoffers and savants said - and have said for 2,000 years.  The road Jesus journey came to an end on Calvary.  Yet we believe otherwise.  We, as Christians, believe that the cross was not the final destination.  We believe God's promises.  We hold the conviction that Jesus' story, his ministry, his presence, his power did not come to an end on Good Friday.  Far from it.  With hope, we anticipate that something more is to come.

This Holy Saturday, I invite you to reflect on your Lenten journey.  Pray on where it has brought you and what it has brought you.  Give thanks for all that has happened.  But when you're done, don't relax.  This is most definitely not, for Jesus or his people, the end of the road ...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shortest Day

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.  You've probably heard by now about the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, which should be quite a sight.  Of course, this being 2020, the sky will probably be overcast obscuring this celestial event. But rather than be pessimistic, I will indulge in some optimism, some hope, that we will be able to see what has been dubbed "The Christmas Star" - even though Christmas isn't until the 25th and Jesus was likely born in March.  Still, it's the thought that counts, right?  Advent is all about hopeful anticipation, and we're coming to its glorious conclusion. I choose to welcome Christ with an open heart.  What about you?  Will you join me?  Will you look heavenward, confident that, clouds or no clouds, Our Lord is coming to be with us?
Read more

Stop the Yuletide Madness!

"Felize Navidad," move over. Justin Bieber's singing "Little Drummer Boy." I kid you not. I don't make this stuff up. Really. Just four seconds of the hour's musical wunderkind singing "Little Drummer Boy" this morning made me desperately long for the morning of December 25 and the return to regular programming on the radio. Of course, this may be a sign from above, offering us yet another reason for us to reclaim Advent from the wider culture!
Read more

My Pal Richard Dawkins

The New York Times ran a profile of evolutionary biologist and uber-atheist Richard Dawkins in this morning's Science Times section. Prof. Dawkins, an Oxford don, knows a lot about biology and is a brilliant scientist, but knows squat about religion; his rants against God show an understanding of religion and theology that are as simplistic (and, dare I say, simple-minded) as the approach to science shown by a number of religious and political figures on the right. None of this is news, really. But it is puzzling. Why does somebody like Dawkins abandon any sense of intellectual nuance when discussing something of which he disapproves? Surely he can do better than his standard "religion is the source of all evil" schtick (especially since it was religion, of the Roman Catholic variety to be exact, that invented the enterprise of which he is currently a part). Today's story makes me wish there were compelling religious figures who could command the same level of pres...
Read more