The Extra Long Lent
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Little did we know going into Lent this year how long it would lst.
Yes, there is an official end to it, and we will celebrate (though virtually) the Resurrection in a week. The calendar may disagree, but the experience this year incorporates an extra long Lenten season, a giving up of far more than we anticipated, and a forward look to an unknown Resurrection.
Whatever the calendar says, we will have two Easters this year: the official one determined by phases of the moon and counting of days, and the experiential one determined by the unknown timing of a virus. I can guarantee you we will celebrate when we can again gather together for worship. I plan to hold communion the first Sunday back in our building, and I can almost guarantee you we will engage in that informal communion that binds most churches together: the covered dish dinner.
In the meantime, Lent really continues. I don’t know if it’s the enforced social isolation or the awareness of how much has left us so suddenly, but I’ve been re-mourning losses and absences.
Our oldest son died two and a half years ago from the flu, something that makes the current pandemic that much more bitter. Of course I miss him all over again. But my mother died nine years ago, and my dad died 18 years ago, and grief for them and others long gone has risen afresh. Just today I read a piece that included this sentence:
We enjoyed our meals while paging through old family photo albums with my mom telling me stories of her youth growing up in Kaohsiung.
When I read that, grief welled up in my throat like spicy food, and I quietly wept, wishing for the opportunity to sit at a table with my mother once again over a cup of coffee and hear stories from the family with which I have lost touch.
I grieve their passing. I grieve the broken family connections. I grieve the loss of the world that is already The Way It Was Before the Virus. This week, it seems doubly appropriate to grieve as we ponder Holy Week and what the Messiah gave up in order to give us the gift of Himself.
There will be a Resurrection. But first, there must be a Death. Yet, sunrise is coming.
Weeping may stay all night,
but by morning, joy!—Psalm 30:5 (CEB)
Peace.