just a little while longer...

Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good… Philemon 1:15

I did not grow up in a liturgical church. I knew Lent was something the Catholics did, and I knew the phrase, "give it up for Lent." It wasn’t until I was in college that I experienced my first Good Friday service with a bare altar and a black-draped cross. I remember wanting to march up to the front of the sanctuary and uncover that cross, because my Jesus is alive!

Over time, Lent has come to seem to me to be a time of shadows, a time of hiding from the knowledge that something awful is coming that we are powerless to stop. Something deep within me wants to stop it, even though I know it was that awful thing that paid for our sin and that it is by Jesus’ wounds that we are healed.

For now, we are in the darkness. We remember the crucifixion, and for now Jesus is still in the tomb. But there is great hope, my friends, for weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. (Psalm 30:5) The morning for which all the earth waits is coming. Then the Son will rise and we will have Jesus back for good

~ Cristel Churchill