The Salad Days

As usual, God seems to have drifted down on my priority list. Lent and Holy Week have been overshadowed by my life changing move to the Twin Cities. Looking back, how I wish I had even taken a few more moments to reflect on the gravity of this time and the magnitude of Christ's sacrifice for me and His church.

I have been going through an anthology of lenten readings, and the refocusing on Christ's sacrifice for me is paramount. How do I allow a festival which I have repeated throughout my life to become alive and vital for me again? My wife's post inspired me this evening. I must refocus upon the life giving power of this sacrifice of Christ. I am as a deer panting for water, and I thirst for the life giving blood of Christ. It is gory, and it is basic. Yet the truth of it is transcendant. God gives spiritual life by suffering physical torture and death. He who turned water into wine and called wine His blood has turned His blood back into water, and it is this Living Water which gives us life.

The depth and metaphor could go on. But what makes it so horrifying and glorious is that it is no mere metaphor. This really happened. We are condemned to death. His blood really does give us life.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,
Have Mercy upon us.