It's Here. The Way of the Cross Opens Before Us

 It's been three weeks since my last post.  When Lent began I planned to write at least every Sunday.  So much for plans.

Three weeks ago life got really complicated.  It's better now, but it took a while.  We've had medical issues of various sorts, and planning for Holy Week on Zoom.  And I had good news: my first piece of memoir writing was accepted, to be published in July.  In the midst of all that, I plumb forgot to post here.

Now it's Palm Sunday, and we're entering into the heart of Jesus' story.  Yes, his birth is important; without his incarnation, we wouldn't have the rest of his story, or of our own.  And yes, his ministry is essential, his teaching forms us today.  But his central teaching is this: there is no life without death, there is no new life without relinquishing the old.  There is no new possibility unless we are willing to die to who we have known ourselves to be, what we have "known" to be true, what we have held out as most important in our lives.

"Those who love their life will lose it; those who lose their life for my sake and for the Gospel will have eternal life."

Thomas Keating's Welcoming Prayer sums up this path of discipleship.  He welcomes all that comes to him, and he lets go of all that might obscure the way:

"I let go of my desire for power and control.  I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval and pleasure.  I let go of my desire for survival and security.  I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person, or myself."

To call this a tall order is to minimize it.  This is the central challenge of our lives, to stare all of this in the face and mean it.

This is what Jesus did at the end.  He let go.  He "welcomed" this hard path, as he trusted that it was the only way forward.  He trusted that it was not the end.  In the garden he prayed to have it be otherwise; on the cross he cried out his fear; but he did not abandon his certainty that this was what God called for, and that God had promised new life would come.

As we walk with him, and with Mary Magdalene this week, take some time to reflect: where am I holding on to how I think things must be?  Where am I still clinging to some version of my life?  Where is God calling me to let go?

The challenges of this past month have planted in me the desire to let go more.  They were hard enough without my resistance; resistance just makes things harder.  So now I'm praying to let go, to welcome it all, to walk with Jesus and trust in Jesus' God.  Mary (all of them!)  is with me, with us, grieving and remembering and hoping against hope.

May you lose your life this week.  May you find the risen Christ at the end of the journey, offering you more than you can ask or imagine.  May it be so.