Journeying through Deserts: 2013 Holy Week theme

It was with a desert journey that Christ's quest began (Matthew 4)--the very quest that would find its end in the triumph of Easter.
Lent, a season of repentence, self-denial, even grief, is a kind of desert. It is a purposeful, somber preparation to help us "discover Easter" again each year.

Whether it reflects our current state or not, during Lent we commit to setting our hearts in a barren place. When it seems that already much of our lives can be characterized as dry and weary, why would we set aside time each year to intentionally dwell in the desert?

For the sake of Joy.
--a concise answer, but certainly not a simple one.

General experience of human life tells us that enduring absence enhances the joy of having again, and that great labor makes success all the sweeter: after all, at the end of even the most painful labor, brand new life is meant to emerge.
But this is not always true. Sometimes, absence remains absence forever; sometimes diligent, sacrificial labor is unrewarded. Our innate sense of the way things should be only serves to frustrate us more when reality falls short of these expectations:

this is the way of things, living in a broken world that was meant to be whole.
And these are our deserts--unfullfilled promises, dashed hopes, frustrated expectations, grief, loss, anxiety. We, and our lives, are not what we wish them to be.

Ash Wednesday, the fasting of Lent, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the deathly quiet of the Saturday after are meant to be taken seriously and slowly, with full attention to what they recall. This because the journey towards Easter is a representative one: it is a picture of each desert we traverse, from beginning to end. It is a reminder that these experiences are difficult, trying, demanding, mournful, but that they will find their end in the unexpected, the miraculous, and unimaginable joy. This pattern is true of each desert journey in our lives, because it is true of the ultimate desert journey: with the road to the cross, the sacrifice, the resurrected life, death was conquered, our wholeness ensured. With death defeated, there is nothing--no desert, nothing we encounter there--that is lethal to us any longer. There is only redemption and restoration at the end of all things.

Whether you have need of reminder, or your grief is already near, the season of Lent offers the opportunity to recognize brokenness and a space to mourn. It asks us not to gloss over the things that draw us to an authority higher than ourselves, that cause us to seek the eternal. But it does this so that we can sense again the emptiness that Easter joy pours into so fully. It does this because there is a happy ending that we often forget, and on Easter, we are given a chance to remember that Hope with a fire of enthusiasm stoked by anticipation and need.

We encourage you to be present and intentional this Lenten and Easter season, and allow us to be a part of that by participating in our Holy Week prayer room. In this sacred space, you will have the opportunity to contemplate, mourn, repent, rejoice, offer thanksgiving, intercede.

We hope you will let us be a part of a very honest and meaningful experience with Christ this season. But more than that, we pray that true Joy will overwhelm your life this Easter.