We meet the Christ every day.

One hopes that we meet Jesus and are aware of his presence each Sunday morning as we attend services and meet with fellow believers. As we sit in our classes. As we share in fellowship and sharing over a muffin or a bagel with cream cheese. As we gather to the sanctuary in worship and prayer and thanksgiving.

We hope that we encounter Jesus each time we gather together in the body of Christ. But sometimes we become so focused on being a church that we lose our way and forget to be the body of Christ. We focus so much on the busy-ness of being Christians that we forget the business of being Christian.

That is why we have Lent.

Lent guides us to simplify, to strip away the parts of our lives that lead us away from God, from the crucified and then the risen Christ.

If we take it seriously, the Lenten season can be abrasive in its starkness, but it is also loving, and it is only abrasive to those parts of our lives that need to be abraded. The path of Lent takes us on a journey, a journey during which we choose to do without things of the world so we can embrace the truth that we cannot do without.

The path of Lent takes us into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and points us to Golgotha on Maundy Thursday, to the Cross on Good Friday, and to the Vigil on Holy Saturday. It points us to all these.

But it also points us to the Tomb on Easter morning, to the rock that was rolled away, to the disciples who bore witness to the emptiness of the tomb, to the burial linens that were left behind.

It points us to the testimony of Mary, who saw the risen Christ, to the testimony of Cleopas and his traveling companion (who I personally think might have been Matthias) who walked and talked with Jesus before breaking bread with him in Emmaus.

We have made our way through the stark journey of the Lenten Season into joy of Easter.

Will we recognize the risen Christ?

John Horner

Missionary Team