I love that I am part of a church that recognizes and celebrates liturgical seasons. Advent has always been one of my favorite seasons. I love that we have time set aside for waiting. There is so much waiting in life – recognizing it helps to make it holy waiting, versus just passing time. 

So there is Advent and it culminates in Christmas. And then there is Lent and it culminates in Easter. I get Easter, but I’ve generally been a little lost on Lent – until this year. I always thought of Lent in terms of spiritual disciplines or fasting or something along those lines. But that never meant a whole lot to me. This year, this year Lent has taken on a whole new meaning. 

The best comparison I can make is to the desert. Our chapel services this season have been about dryness – those times in life when you just get through by putting one foot in front of the other. Those times when praying is laughable and rarely possible. Those times when you can’t seem to find God anywhere – when you ask and there is no answer, when you knock and the door is not answered, when you seek and cannot find. The dry periods. 

These are not enjoyable periods, but they are part of life. Being able to name them and make them holy, well that is a helpful thing, a little piece of comfort when there is not much. 

So, Lent is about the dry spells. The times in the desert when we simply cannot find our way out, but rather wander with the Israelites holding onto the idea of the promised land. We complain and wonder why we have been brought out here only to die (surely where we were was not that bad), and we frequently fail to trust in the providence of God. We are so much like the Israelites – we feel like we barely know this God who has brought us out into the middle of nowhere. 

So – that is Lent. One of the disconcerting things about liturgical seasons is that they do not always correspond with our lives. I have lived Lent. I lived Lent for a long time. But – halfway through this season of Lent, I experienced Resurrection. Things snapped back into perspective. They began to click again. And it was Easter in my world. 

Unfortunately, it was Lent in everyone else’s – both liturgically and in reality. It has been a dry period on this campus. Lots of bad news and illness and break-ups and real life. We have all suffered from low energy and general blah-ness. 

So, what do you do when you are living Easter in the middle of Lent?