“March comes in like a lion, and out like a lamb.” This great image of spring is indelibly inked on my memory, perhaps because my birthday is in early March. It even snowed (on the Gulf Coast!) for my birthday one year. Such wild changes in weather this week (a March snow in East Texas?!) are proving the old proverb right yet again.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, God’s “Anointed One” (Messiah in Hebrew, Christ in Greek) is described with strength and power, sometimes even roaring like a lion. In the season of Lent, which annually coincides with spring, the Scriptures come out roaring too, beginning with the Ash Wednesday call to repentance, and continuing for weeks with Jesus’ challenging actions and teaching. By the time we enter Holy Week, Jesus begins to talk of obedience, of sacrifice, and of faithfulness in the face of death: a calm face set against chaos and destruction. “Behold the
Lamb of God,” we say with the Gospel of John, “who takes away the sin of the world.”
Though it still feels like winter in our neck of the woods, you’re invited to enter this springtime journey tonight. Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality and frailty, and also of the great mercy and forgiveness that God enacts through the life and death of Jesus. If you’re in the forest country of East Texas, join us at Perritte—we’ll be serving a simple dinner as usual at 5:30 pm, and worship will begin at 6:15. Come and encounter our Messiah, who during the season of Lent comes in like a Lion, and out like a Lamb.
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