Easter time for the Young at Heart

Lent: Making Space not Earning points  

Lent starts with ashes and reminding us, that we are God’s children. From dust we came and to dust we shall return. In a world that tells young people to perform, achieve, brand themselves and perform. Tradition calls us back to hear:  

You don’t have to prove your worth, 
You already belong.  

For those who are seeking a practice of lent in community, the dinner table, with friends or small groups we might ask together, what is exhausting us? What is numbing us? Where might we pay attention to those areas of life we have lost tenderness.  

This is in contrast to the constant bombardment of those things we carry everyday, climate fears, wars, everyday living costs, crisis, health and so on… where might God be calling us to prayer? Instead of giving things up for lent, we might ask; what conversations am I avoiding? What am I hungry for? Where do I need the truth rather than another distraction.  

If we sit in the tradition of our Uniting Church, we might step out of individual piety or holiness. That is we can examine ourselves, but we might also hear the call to justice, repentance and hope. If fasting from chocolate, SnapChat or Instagram is helpful for you that’s great, but that silence or hunger should point us toward rest, prayer that tells the truth, and listening to voices we usually ignore.  

Holy Week - When faith gets real; Holy Week doesn’t skip over the hard stuff!  

It walks alongside betrayal, fear, violence, grief and a society that crushes the vulnerable. This God we have heard call us, doesn’t avoid the suffering, but enters into it. Jesus understands anxiety, injustice, fear, and loss. When we reach Good Friday, there is no glory in pain, but rather there is a truth telling! Good Friday is about naming pain, honestly, and refusing to pretend it doesn’t matter.  

At Easter, everything can be made new!  

This is not the drop down menu reset button that erases suffering or the cross; it is God’s way or showing us that;  

Death doesn’t get the final word, the love is strong than fear. And that even after the worst has happened, new life is possible.  

That burnout from navigating life in identity, climate concern, injustice, loneliness or uncertainty, is not answered by the Easter story, however our response could be to see that God Promises us presence. The resurrection is not an escape as we learn in the early church, but it is a transformation.  

Hope can rise in unexpected places, broken things are not disposable and God is still at work, even when we thought that the story was over.  

Lent is about telling the truth,  
The cross is about love that refuses to walk away. 
Easter is about hope that survives everything.