Lent

I've been reading through Bonhoeffer's God is On the Cross: Reflections on Lent and Easter this Lenten season.  He wrote, "This is my second Passiontide here.  When people suggest in their letters. . . that I'm 'suffering' here, I reject the thought.  It seems to me a profanation.  These things mustn't be dramatized.  I doubt very much whether I'm 'suffering' any more than you, or most people, are suffering today.  Of course, a great deal here is horrible, but where isn't it? . . . No, suffering must be something quite different, and have a quite different dimension, from what I've so far experienced." (from a letter to Eberhard Bethage from Tigel Prison, Mar. 9, 1944).

This Lent has been punctuated for us by the death of a family friend.  She passed away from cancer a couple of weeks ago. She was a very godly woman, a Five Aspects woman if I ever knew one.   Her joy is now full.  She is with her Jesus.  Yet she left family behind. We love them deeply and we grieve with them.

The lessons we've done so far in our Five Aspects of Woman Bible study have concentrated on the first few chapters of Genesis.  After the death of our friend, I was reminded once again of how utterly awful the process of death really is.  Back in the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, they must have been instantly horrified by what they had done.  When the second Adam, Jesus, wept at Lazarus' tomb, I believe He not only wept for Lazarus, but for the absolute depth of sorrow that death brings. Blackness. Brokeness. Aloneness.  Forever.

A few weeks ago, our family attended our church's Ash Wednesday service.  After the ashes where applied to our foreheads in the sign of the cross, the elder said these words, "From dust you came, to dust you shall return."  Lydia and I sat back down in our chairs and she whispered to to me, "Momma, this makes it so I can't wait for Easter. . . and it's not because of the candy."

"Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."  1 Cor. 15:12-22