Are you a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of person? Is life a grand and glorious experience or one difficult thing after another? Do you lean toward pessimism or optimism?
We all know someone who constantly seems to have a smile on their face whistling through life. We all know someone who can find struggles in the best of situations. I remember saying about one person: “If they won millions in the lottery, they would complain about the penmanship of the one signing the check.”
Try to put Jesus in either of these categories. I don’t think it will work. Jesus pointed out the good even in the hated enemy. Jesus also called Herod a fox, uprooted tables in a temple, and was said to sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.
It seems to me Jesus is not someone who looked at life through any philosophical lens or constant attitude. Jesus looked at life as it was. Jesus called life what it was: the good, the bad, and the ugly. This gives you and I license to be who we are in all the circumstances that life throws our way. Want to shout and dance with joy? Go ahead. Feel like crying, complaining, or whining? Woe is me is permissible in some of life’s experiences.
Reading a book on Abraham Lincoln’s last speech, I am struck by the context. The speech was delivered April 11. The North and some of the South, especially the slaves, were celebrating. The awful war was over! There were fireworks, parades, and loud cheers. Yet just days later, April 14, Good Friday, the same Lincoln cheered during his speech, was the victim of an assassin’s bullet, delivered by one who was on the White House lawn listening to the speech.
We are nearing the end of Lent. Lent began with ashes, continued with temptations, marched on with stories concerning the cross, and will soon have its own parade, Palm Sunday. Lent goes downhill from there. How many times in life have you had some great experience, only to be struck with something quite difficult almost immediately following?
Which is life? The parades or the great difficulties? Both are. Lent is something to be endured, not celebrated. It is something to go through. Lent is also a teacher. It teaches us that many things cannot be overcome but they can be endured. We can go through them. Few of us can get over the death of a close loved one. Yet we can get through it. We can endure grief to come out on another, better, and, perhaps, stronger side. Maybe you and I ought to think of this pandemic experience as one lonnnngggg Lent. It has had its teaching moments. It has had some good things. It has had many difficult challenges and sad moments. I don’t know anyone who wants to repeat this experience except, perhaps, our dog. Is one of the lessons learned that we can endure? Do we feel like maybe….just maybe….we are going to come through this?
It is hard to go through life like Tigger and even harder, perhaps, to go through life like Eeyore, both characters in Winnie the Pooh. Life does not provide a consistent experience where either of these attitudes would always be appropriate. God, however, provides us with Jesus and a scripture that runs the gamut from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows and a lot in between. That is, God provides us with an awareness that life doesn’t always offer a level experience. If God, then, is with us ,if God, then, knows about life’s hills and valleys, you and I can endure. We can go through and come out on some other side.
Fill your glass, empty your glass, or leave it sit. We can have a realistic approach to life trusting we have a God who also has a very real understanding of us and of our life.
Whistle joyfully or trudge along with head bowed. There is one whistling with us and one despairing with us. We learn in our Lenten trek we are not without God. We can endure. We can go through to the other side. Good news for those caught up in a pandemic. Good news for those caught up in life.