"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it." (Luke 9:23)
These words of Jesus remind us, just one day after being marked on Ash Wednesday, of the paradox that the forty-day desert trek of Lent is cause for unparalleled hope.
Lent is a microcosm of the Christian life: Following our rebirth in the waters of Baptism, we travel perhaps not 40, but maybe 80 or more years through the desert of our particular journey, surrounded by vistas at times beautiful and vast, other times austere and desolate. The difference faith in Jesus Christ makes is the assurance that our journey through the Lenten desert has a vastly different meaning and purpose than the desolation we encounter, as it is the Spirit-filled journey through death to new life.
The fruit of the cross - the Tree of Life that grows in desert places – is the ultimate flourishing of life itself, the precious gift of participation in the very life of God. Christian faith intuits that it is precisely at the dark place where we encounter death and desolation, that we meet God’s boundless generosity and mercy. The Paschal Mystery that we enter with increasing depth each Lent, is the mystery of our deliverance from the oppression of evil, sin, and death, precisely in and through the very ravages of the cross. Lent is here to remind us that, no matter how vast or desolate the deserts we cross, like the crucified Lord of Life, we are all being lifted up.
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