As we begin our third pandemic Lent, I’m feeling like the pandemic is more akin to the forty years the Israelites wandered in the wilderness than the forty days that Jesus spent out in the desert! And yet, one of the great themes of Lent is that God is with us through the difficult times. God taught Noah how to build an ark for the stormy forty days. God nourished and guided the Israelites for those forty arduous years of struggle and longing. The angels tended to Jesus during those forty days of deprivation and temptation.
Lent is a time to intentionally draw closer to God. We typically do that through spiritual practices of “giving up” and “taking on.” We might give up on sweets or watching TV. We might take on a spiritual book to read or praying Compline. We give something up to make room for God; we take something on to invite God in. There are countless ways that we can grow spiritually during Lent. Sometimes, it is to do something new, like joining us for our Lenten program about witnesses to the cross. But sometimes it is about renewing or recommitting to something old. Like, if we have lost the habit of regular worship, Lent is a good time to start worshipping again by committing to go to church each week, whether virtually or in-person.
There is a helpful illustration from the 6th Century monk Dorotheos of Gaza about the spiritual life. He invited his monks to imagine a circle with lines or spokes between the circumference and the center point. Not unlike a wagon wheel. Now, the center point is God; the circle’s circumference is the world; and the lines are our lives. The closer we draw to God, the closer our lives must draw to each other. One way to draw closer to God this Lent is to draw closer to one another. For some of you that might mean gathering in-person as you start coming to in-person activities this Lent and re-connect with old friends or make new ones. For others, they cannot return yet in-person, and yet we can still draw close to each other while being physically separate: by joining a Zoom gathering or making a phone call or sending a letter. Whatever is the right and safe option for you and your household, I encourage you to find ways to draw near to each other this Lent, for in the process, you will draw nearer to God.
Bingham+
