Dear Cornerstone Family,
Today is the first Sunday of the six-week season in the church calendar known as Lent.
The word Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon term for “length.” It’s a term commonly used for springtime when the day light lengthens and the days grow longer. This is why the season of Lent begins in the shorter days of winter when it’s cold and dreary but ends when the daylight has increased and the signs of spring are everywhere.
The move from cold and dark to warm and light is the spiritual story Lent tells. The emptiness and deadness of winter eventually giving way to the fullness and life of spring is a creational picture of the cross-to-empty-tomb story. The season of Lent trudges through the wintertime of the cross, full of pain and death, unto the skip-in-your-step springtime of the resurrection, charged with healing and hope.
As Christ followers, our lives are shaped by this story, for this story is the story. It is the true story of the world. And we, creatures recreated in Christ, we live the Christ story day by day, ordering each moment by our Savior’s footsteps (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Imagine your whole life as trailing Jesus Christ. He cut the trail having gone on ahead of you in the cross, resurrection, and the ascension. But now he’s come back to be with you by the Spirit and walk the whole way with you. Every moment he speaks to you by his Word. Assuring you of his presence and love. Warning you of danger. Encouraging you forward on the path. Showing you where he stepped. Guiding you by the pattern of his life.
As you listen and look to him, you begin to see the cross-to-resurrection story take hold in your life. As you recount your past, different bends in the trail, you interpret them according to your Savior’s story. As you encounter trials and joys, dark valleys and mountain tops, each turn is illumined by your Savior’s story. As you look ahead to the uncertainties that await in future legs of the journey, your imaginings are shaped by your Savior’s story.
In a word, you are learning to take up your cross daily and follow him (Matthew 16:24). You are learning to live by the strength and the surprising peace and joy of the resurrection Spirit who lives within you (Romans 8:11). You are experiencing more of what it means to be afflicted, persecuted, and struck down, but not crushed, despairing, or destroyed. You are carrying in our body the death of Jesus while increasingly the life of Jesus is manifested in you (2 Corinthians 4:8-12).
For you are learning to live life how it’s supposed to be lived––looking to Jesus, the author and perfector of your faith (Romans 12:2). When you start living that way even the crosses begin to feel a little lighter. For his yoke really is easy. His burden really is light (Matthew 11:28-29).
Your servant,
