Feb. 26: The First Sunday in Lent
By all accounts Jesus and his movement failed. He was a loser, according to the conventional wisdom. When he died there was no legacy, no great monuments that he left behind. All he left was a ragtag band of misfits who got it wrong more often than they got it right. And yet, history is littered with the crumbling monuments to the great and powerful.
We continue to follow this failed prophet. Why is that? What is it about Jesus, and Mary, and Gandhi, and Mother Teresa, and all those powerless people that so draw us to them?
The Savior that we want, is not the savior that we need.
Jesus, hanging there on the cross, humiliated and dejected, even then points to God’s love and God’s grace. The prayer of the one crucified next to Jesus is our prayer, “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus reminds us that he is with us -- today, now, right here, walking with us, reminding us in the words of the Spiritual, “and he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own.”
That is the Good News that we get to share! That is the Good News that our world longs for! That is the Good News that will set this world free!
Tags: 2023 Lenten Meditations