I'm Giving Up Sleep For Lent

 Not all sleep, of course. It’s my first time ‘giving something up’ for Lent. Ideally, it’s an opportunity to identify with and appreciate the significant suffering that Christ went through on my behalf. People give up all kinds of stuff, chocolate, fish, social media and sports. I know of one person that sacrificed sarcasm.

I don’t want to approach Easter with arrogance. Nor do I desire to enter into self-flagellation as Martin Luther did before he understood his justification by faith. Seems the season should hold some sacrifice alongside a reflective posture. Loss and discipline. Remembering and celebrating. Perhaps you’ve come across people where their supposed sacrifice seems ho-hum, “I’m giving up salads!” I felt like I should loosen my hold of something that’s got hold of me. Something my friends recognize as my attachment. My wife’s loud guffaw when I told her I was giving up sleep let me know I was giving up the right thing.

Why sleep? I love my sleep. I have friends that enjoy sunrises. I don’t. Sunrises happen early in the morning when people should be sleeping. If I were on the show Survivor, giving up food would be a tertiary problem. What would ruin me would be giving up sleep. And coffee. The coffee which I need because I’m waking up---from sleep. It comes easy to me; in cars, on airplanes, in chairs and beds. I go to bed late and get up late. But not this season.

I’m not the watchman waiting for the morning, but I’ve been surprised to find a richness in rising earlier. My own voice encourages me to rise up saying, “It’s Lent!”. There’s been no mystical experience, no deep insights into Christ’s suffering. Nothing earth-shaking at all really. There has been this; a settling quiet. A peculiar calm as I sit at my desk drinking my coffee and reading my books. Beneath all that is an expectancy for Easter, the most earth-shaking of events preceding the raising of Christ, the First-fruits of those who are asleep!

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Oil of Zarephath

My friend, she says, is sustained day by day,
Just like the widow in Lebanon.
Polio, yes, takes all her strength away,
Health’s not what she’s depending on.
 
The widow, she scrapes, together one last potpie,
Convinced her son won’t go on living.
By famine, true, means they both will die,
Biscuits and oil are life-giving.
 
The prophet, thus says, shall put end to the fast,
With challah bread from oil and flour.
Her only son, gasp, breathes away his last,
Crushed beneath deaths’ dark power.
 
Holy man, I’m marred, sin is brought to light,
Is it your plan to kill or set free?
“Thy beloved, see, alive and alright,”
She glimpses Him from Galilee.
 
Oh Lord, we sing, how long these bitter pains?
Drought of oil while famine breaks and mars,
He will provide, trust, hear the gentle rains,

Oh Lord fill these our earthen jars.

Photo by Roberta Sorge on Unsplash

Waiting In The Parenthesis

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

“You are silence and song, you are plain as the day, but you have hidden your face--For how long? How long?” ---Andrew Peterson, The Reckoning

It’s been a year of waiting. Waiting for mom’s healthy return from the hospital. The return home in hospice.  Hospice by its definition is a waiting. The final ‘home-free’. Then a parenthesis.

Open-parenthesis; the memorial service. Margaret’s’ waiting is over. Now the children wait. Our son married in March. The wedding is both an end to waiting and the beginning of a process of marriage. Returning home, the waiting continues.

The house is up for sale. We must move. Searching for a rental. We Zillow countless houses, make calls to realtors, open-houses after work. Hoping to find the right one; making an offer, waiting for acceptance. In all the waiting there is tension.

The wife is looking for work. They want her for interviews. Anxiously she pursues the process. Again the waiting. The tension. We want the waiting to end. But what if she doesn’t get the job?  What if we don’t find a house? Pressure is walking through the process. Hope is that the outcome will satisfy.

Easter is a time of waiting. We taste the disciples last week with Jesus. This “walking with’ as we celebrate passion. Holding on while hosannas rattle windows and high-priests. The confusion of that first communion; Roman soldiers, kangaroo court, crucifixion. Taut and heart wrenching the same question asked; the same cry ascends, “How long?” 

The resurrection doesn’t end our longing. It affirms the answer. In the parenthesis we live as aliens aching for a place to settle. We all seek security. Afflicted and needy we want the pain to stop. The resurrection assures us we will be satisfied. There will be a final celebration, final homecoming, final reunion. The waiting will be over.  Close parenthesis.