Greetings to Jesus’ Disciples,
As our congregational epiphany word is grace, my eye is more tuned to see this word which is the beauty of following a word for a time. On Wednesday, our gathering song for worship was, “How Small Our Span of Life” ELW 636 (Kingsford tune). The second verse compares the expanse of the universe and our tick of time with being held in God’s grace.
And yet our speck of life is spanned by your infinity;
Our tick of time on earth is caught in your eternity.
While suns and stars spin endlessly through depths of cosmic space, while aeons roll and ages pass, you hold us in your grace.
Take a moment to imagine yourself being held in God’s grace.
We are held in God’s grace with all creation swirling around us and God meets us in Jesus in a way that we can understand a bit of the mystery of God. The season of Lent gives us a great opportunity to see God’s sacrifice of his son as the way we are held in God’s grace.
I am grateful for Jesus and how Jesus shows us the way to endure evil, temptations, trials and testing by turning to God and focusing on what we already know about God. Jesus fasted from food with an intense focus on God’s word. So we practice little fasts from food or patterns of behavior that need a break so we can look anew with God and God’s hold on us.
This week we will hear of how Jesus faces the call of suffering and death with longing for us to be gathered under the protection of his wings like a mother hen and realizing that we will have none of it. We would rather know the world on our own and avoid suffering, sacrifice and death, for it does not look like a doorway that leads to anything good, let alone God. Yet this does not dissuade Jesus from following God’s call.
What a path Jesus is plodding for us, showing us the way forward, the way of God, may not be supported and cheered and more often than not be a very lonely path without much support. Go back to your imagination of being held in God’s grace. Remember the encouragement Jesus received at his baptism and on the Mt. of Transfiguration. Hear the Holy Spirit whisper those words of encouragement; “you are mine”, “beloved”. Claim your identity, children of God. Don’t let the identity thieves take it away. You are held in God’s grace and sometimes even caught in this grace.
This is what I am feeling in this season of Lent. A sense of gratefulness for all that Jesus does to meet us and invite us along on a treacherous and difficult journey with God that will well be worth all the struggles, all the sufferings, all the sacrifices of our lives as resurrection and the promise of new life emerges like the tender sprout comes out of the rich soil in the spring.
I pray for the Holy Spirit to shape and form in us a powerful image of us being held in God’s grace. I pray for us to cling to our identity like Jesus clings to his identity as his call shapes the way for us. Thank you, God, for holding us in your grace. Amen.
Bold Inquisitive Belief
Loving Expansively,
Pastor Connie Spitzack
