In full disclosure., I have messed up. The 40 days of lent should be counted, omitting the Sundays. I have failed to omit the Sundays and so it is not really Day 32,. But we’ll just keep going with the readings without numbering the days.
Today’s Lenten reading is from Dorothy Soelle a German theologian who focused much of her work and writing on the strife and suffering of the Holocaust. This essay, “On This Gallows,” relies very much on an excerpt from Night by Elie Weisel. In examining Christ’s place among all suffering, Soelle makes a thought provoking quote on resurrection. “A person’s resurrection is no personal privilege for himself alone- even if he is called Jesus of Nazareth. It contains within itself hope for all, for everything.” The life , death, and resurrection of Christ has implications for all people. This is not a revolutionary statement, it is a simple statement of orthodoxy and the Christian understanding of salvation. Yet, its profundity is in the fact that it displays unknown love and the pervasive plan of God in Christ. The challenge for us is to know that as we are changed, challenged, and encouraged by the presence of Christ, we do the same for others. Christ in us is on display to impact the world around us. When we have trials, the world sees and when we come through the world sees. May they see Christ in us through it all.
Thanks to Nick Noble for the new cross in the courtyard.