28 Feb - Lenten Message

Jesus now moves steadily toward the capital city, toward Jerusalem,
and toward his fate on the Cross.
And as he does, without a thought for his own fate,
he takes a moment to warn us about our own fate.
Jesus takes a moment to call God’s people, and each of us, to repent.
Lent is the season of repentance,
40 days of honest reflection upon our identity as sinners,
yet sinners who, by the grace of God,
are being redeemed through the work that Jesus goes to do in Jerusalem.
Yet we shall not be redeemed unless we repent.
Jesus calls us to repent – urgently.

There is an urgency in Jesus’ call for Jerusalem to return to God,
to be Re-created, Renewed and Reborn as God’s people,
and of course, that call comes to us once again in Lent.
God sees what our life is like, what it might be like without God,
what our life could be like, with God as our center.
There is an intensity in God’s love for us,
And there is an intensity of God’s wanting to show us mercy.
Jesus speaks about this when he says that he has often desired
to gather the children of Jerusalem together
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.
God’s desire to do that for all of us is unceasing.

And there’s a fierceness about God’s love and mercy.
There’s a fierceness about Christ.
Frederick Buechner writes about our Lord as “Christ the Tiger.”
Jesus’ fierceness is hounding us – calling to us,
tiger-like in its strength.
Mother-hen-like in its gentleness.
Those two are not working alternately, but rather, simultaneously.

Jesus is not putting up barriers or hurdles for us to leap over.
Instead, Jesus is willing to give himself up for us,
in order to transform each one of us.
Jesus will give himself up to be killed if that will help him to do that for us.
And that is precisely what Jesus does for us.
Jesus gives himself up to be crucified, knowingly,
because Jesus just can’t give up being a mother hen for us - -
to gather us up under those loving wings.

Blessings on your Lenten journey,

Fr. Bob