News

There it stands in all its resplendent beauty seemingly glaring at me, taunting me.  It stands a a sentinel of a wonderful time past  If it could speak, I wonder what it might say to me. Would it say, “I dare you to do something to me despite my timely irrelevance?” Or, does the time weigh over it and might it beg, “Do what you have to do! End my misery?”

“It” is a left-over poinsettia. In the back yard in a ceramic pot, it remains as attractive as the day we battled dozens of Black Friday shoppers to wrestle it from the shelf so we could pay only 50 cents for it. Now we are in Lent. a time traditionally that flowers were not allowed in church. A time of sack cloth and ashes, repentance  and reflection on sin.  

Indeed, Lent is not to be a depressing time, but a season that is serious, and at times somewhat more sober than the rest of the church year. Somehow a brilliant red poinsettia appears to mock a time such as Lent. What to do? I could pretend to be forgetful and withhold its nourishment of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. I could move it to a less visible corner of the yard or place it out front in  hopes that vandals would destroy or kidnap it. Perhaps I could simply pull myself together, pick it up, and cart it off to the trash or the church’s compost bin. 

I have decided! I will let it go and continue to care for it. I will let its brightness and beauty break into the dusk of Lent. After all Lent is also a time of forgiveness. Lent is not without grace. It is not without the risen Jesus.  It is not without the incarnate God, come to earth at Christmas.  Remain there, O staunch reminder of a joyful and glorious time! Stand proudly as a witness to a time so joyful it can shine forth in the gloomiest of times and places. Show off your foliage and display God’s created goodness as the shadow of the cross looms, and our sin exposed. 

Lent is a serious time for Christian pilgrims. Lent is a time we see the seriousness of God’s grace. Let that grace, too shine into Lent’s tempered light.