Lent #2 A Season Of Tensions
Walking Towards the Cross
Lent is a journey with Jesus towards the cross. It’s a reminder that life is not fully contained in our desires for good health, rising bank accounts, and the pursuit of our personal goals. There is also a descent into pain, suffering, and loss that cannot be avoided in spite of our attempts to do so. As Jesus walked the path of suffering so we have our own passage of affliction. Indeed, how we make our way along this trying trail of trouble is fundamental to our journey of faith.
I was struck by this conundrum during our recent trip to sunny Bonaire. My wife’s sciatica raised its painful head partway through our time and I took a precarious fall down a stairway while trying to prepare her way. A comical, slapstick scene to observe (I am sure) but hurtful nonetheless. A trip to paradise on the one hand but not absent of pain on the other.
Karl Rahner speaks to this duality of happiness and plaintiveness as he observes,
Evidently no one would wish to quarrel with the ideals of more health, wealth, freedom, and so on by which modern persons set such store. The fact is that many things remain: pain, old age, sickness, disappointment in marriage, in one’s children, in one’s job, and at the end of it all death, which no one escapes and which is already a controlling, permeating factor of life. The question can consequently be only how one is to cope with this reality of suffering and death.
It is all too evident that life is this melange of satisfaction and sorrow all rolled up into one big ball which we roll around throughout our journey in time. “Yes” we have periodic highs—and “yes” agonizing lows—at times all wrapped up in a single day. Lent is a liturgical season that helps us to slow down and peer into this quagmire of parallel pathways.
During this season of Lent we have the space to reflect upon these daily tensions. The rise and the fall, the yin and the yang, the comedy and tragedy of it all; that is the entirety that makes up our journey under God’s sun. It is also this totality that sings and cries before our Creator God (and his Liberating Prince) and brings us in the end to the eternal blissful shore.
If I am honest it's not always easy to keep this mindset in light of "Lent #2 A Season Of Tension", life with its pull and tug motion, mingle in with quiet respite. Nowadays, not only do we bear these personal tensions, but carry the unresolved tractions of our brothers, sisters, neighbours at home and beyond. Lent drives me beyond my perceive safety albeit not quite, to accompany others on a bit on their journey as the lament sings "When I walk through the evil and strife of the earth / And I turn and I cover my eyes, / The arms that do violence / While our hearts watch in silence— /Won’t you break them by the power of Your grace." Thank you for sharing!
Wow Pastor Alan, I had to rewrite as morning commute reply can be mis- interpret. Yes and well said "The rise and the fall, the yin and the yang, the comedy and tragedy of it all; that is the entirety that makes up our journey under God’s sun". Note GOD'S sun, not ours. We need to remember it's about Abba through Christ and I hope you and my darling B heal well. So drop in my spirit that husband fell while catching his beloved. Humourous but reflective....but CHRIST our Bridegroom will never fall catching His Bride, the church....that is love, true love. You both will be in my prayers, blessings Pastor Alan ❤️