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The echo of cheers still hangs in the air, a fading memory from yesterday’s celebration. Palm fronds, once vibrant symbols of hope, now lie scattered on the dusty ground, their green already tinged with brown. We walk beside Jesus, a heavy silence pressing down where excitement crackled just a day ago. The joy of Palm Sunday feels like a dream – a beautiful, fleeting dream that leaves you a little lost when you wake up. The bright Jerusalem sunshine that cast hope on the city walls seems to mock us now. We can still almost hear the cheers of the ...

Humbled, penitent and reminded that all of this is temporal.The Lenten walk begins again. A look back to the beginning, a glimpse forward to redemption. This becomes more and more real every year.Life is Good, all is God's!

Humbled, penitent and reminded that all of this is temporal.The Lenten walk begins again. A look back to the beginning, a glimpse forward to redemption. This becomes more and more real every year.Life is Good, all is God's!

SATURDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF LENT Preparing for Next Week Has Lent felt long for you this year, or has it gone by quickly? What have been the graces for you? Do you feel more grounded or closer to God?What prayer, fasting, or almsgiving disciplines have been fruitful for you this season? Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the beginning of the holiest week of the year for Christians. As a kid, I only thought of this period as “the week before Easter,” and I looked forward to finding our Easter baskets full of sweets the next Sunday. I was oblivious to ...

FRIDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF LENT Listen to Someone Else For I hear many whisperings: ‘Terror is all around!’ … But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior. —Jeremiah 20:10-11 Forget about whispering; we hear much of the media and plenty of individual cynics shouting, “terror is all around!” Between the terror of the COVID-19 pandemic, the violence and injustice perpetrated against African people in this country, and extreme weather events, reading the news can be very terrifying these days. Jeremiah had reason to be afraid when he heard the whisperings of his powerful enemies. He also discovered that ...

THURSDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF LENT When Do I Seek Strength? Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually. —Psalm 105:4 Theoretically, I want to follow this entreaty all the time. Realistically, I find that more often than not, I make time to seek the Lord’s presence when things are difficult. When I beg for God’s help, I promise that I will keep praying just as much when things get easier. It reminds me of when I had a debilitating back injury, and I promised God that I would do core exercises every day for the ...

WEDNESDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF LENT Choosing Truth You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. —John 8:31-32 I am sometimes struck that Jesus said, “The truth will make/set you free” instead of “The truth will make things easier.” We have discovered that telling the truth is sometimes more painful than telling a lie, at least initially. At the same time, we have learned that once we are in the habit of telling the truth, we are all much freer to trust and be trusting. We are not imprisoned by suspicion or second-guessing someone else ...

TUESDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF LENT Worn Out by the Journey From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but with their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” —Numbers 21:4-5 In this passage, the Israelites had escaped slavery in Egypt and thought they were headed quickly for the Promised Land where they ...

MONDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF LENT Invitation to Rest The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. —Psalm 23:1-3 When I was a kid, I did not understand why people seemed to like Psalm 23 so much. I thought it meant “I shouldn’t want anything,” and so I felt guilty when I did. Also, I thought it meant that God was trying to get me to nap outside when what I really wanted to do was play. It took me ...

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT Following Your Conscience I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. —Jeremiah 31:33 As far back as the time of Jeremiah, hundreds of years before Jesus lived, our ancestors in faith understood that we all have access to God’s truth in our deepest core. Like us, the Jews at that time understood that rules written for the public are necessary for keeping society running smoothly, but ultimately, we have the responsibility first and foremost to ...

SATURDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF LENT How Is Your Lent Going? Now that we are at the end of the fourth week of Lent, this is an excellent time to review the past few weeks. How has this season been for you? Have you felt yourself in a desert wilderness? How so? Has it felt like a desert because it has been a time of dryness and thirsting? Or has it been a period in the wilderness when you have been able to hear God’s voice more easily because of the quiet and stillness? Does that image resonate with how ...

FRIDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF LENT Jesus Has Been There The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit. —Psalm 34:18 Given the choice, I would prefer to follow a God who would protect me from ever having a broken heart. Short of that, I am grateful that I was born into a religion in which God became fully human and knows first-hand our experience. Scripture tells us Jesus was broken-hearted when his good friend Lazarus died. His spirit was crushed as he hung on the cross (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me ...

THURSDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF LENT Idolatry Today They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it. —Exodus 32:8 The thing about idols is that those worshiping them do not think they are idols—they believe they are the real thing. We might wonder how in the world the Israelites convinced themselves that the golden calf was their god. Then again, people outside of our culture might wonder how we have let ourselves get sucked into worshiping ...

WEDNESDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF LENT Commas, Not Periods My Father is still working, and I also am working. —John 5:17 A couple of times I have seen a meme online that says, “Don’t put a period where God has placed a comma. God is still speaking.” It reminds me of this verse from John’s Gospel. Jesus’ work did not end 2,000 years ago when he ascended into heaven, and God did not quit communicating with us after the Bible was written. No matter how troubling things may be, God is still active here and now. God ...

TUESDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF LENT Fake-It-Till-You-Make-It Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea. —Psalm 46:2 My personality type tends toward worry and fear more than most. Maybe that is the reason I love the Bible passages where Jesus tells people, “Do not be afraid.” I could use that reminder pretty much every day of my life, and even more so now that I have son and my heart is walking around outside of myself. In him. I would love to get to a place where I ...

MONDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF LENT It Gets Better No more shall the sound of weeping be heard, or the cry of distress. —Isaiah 65:19 Since my brother’s daughter Tanika, choked and drowned in a public pool, friends and family members have not been able to stop crying. If I were to read them this passage from Isaiah, would they be able to believe that someday they will not weep or be distressed by Tanika’s death anymore? Probably not, because as humans it is hard for us to believe something that is so different from what we are ...

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT Modern-Day Messengers Early and often did the Lord, the God of their ancestors, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people. —2 Chronicles 36:15 What messengers has God sent you recently —and with what messages? If God is consistent, God still uses all manner of people to be messengers, just as God used a diverse cast of characters to get people’s attention in Bible times. Back then, God used children (like Samuel), refugees Naomi and Ruth, educated scholars from another land (the magi), loud-mouthed folks who appeared mentally unstable (John ...

WEDNESDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT Past Blessings But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life. —Deuteronomy 4:9 In this passage, Moses implores the Israelites always to remember and pass onto their children and their grandchildren stories of the wonderful things God has done for them. This speech comes after God freed them from slavery in Egypt and sustained them on their 40-year journey in the wilderness. Moses’ advice is still good instruction today, especially ...

TUESDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT A Hard Teaching “How often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.” —Matthew 18:21-22 I know a 73-year-old woman who decided to give up her grudges for Lent. She said she had nursed a couple of them for decades but realized that she finally wanted to be free of them. She figured Lent was as good a time as any to practice forgiveness. She made that the focus of her Lenten prayer and repeatedly asked God to relieve her from ...

MONDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT Who Is Our Leader? O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me. —Psalm 43:3 In a country where government leaders and those in positions of authority cannot always be trusted to tell the truth or guide the nation in the ways of justice and peace, we need this prayer more than ever now. As Christians, our responsibility is to first look to God’s light and truth and to how and where God is leading. The challenge is that some leaders fool us by equating their ways with God’s ...