On Friday

7 Epiphany
6 Hilary

And so I embark upon the holy season of Lent feeling a great burden of brokenness on my shoulders. I find myself bearing witness to a little more entrophy, a little more deadness that I can't shake, and can't seem to do anything with: either a very poor or very appropriate beginning to the time of penance and reconciliation.

I really do believe that a holy discipline of submission is one of the most powerful ways to counter this death, and to appropriate God's work of new creation. But this work of learning authority, learning submission, learning resurrection - must be done in the humility and reciprocity that comes from an initial submission to Jesus and what he's doing.

It can be so easy to get confused; in this work there is a death and a birth, and if we are not thoughtful, and prayerful, and listening, we will find ourselves working for a miscarriage of the new birth, and building up what should have passed away with the old world a long time ago.

We stand on the other side of the Epiphany. We know he is here, and he cannot be stopped. We have begun to see what comes with his Rule, and find ourselves ambivalent, perhaps rejecting, perhaps rejoicing, and learning most certainly that we are part of a Salvation that is so very much more than we could ever have imagined.

And now we follow him along the way of listening, and along the way of death that will lead to a New Life.

Be here, Jesus.

Technorati Tags: theology, christianity, Lent