Lent begins on February 22 with Ash Wednesday. This year’s lectionary for Lent offers us many stories of Jesus encountering people who are seeking: Nicodemus comes to him in the veil of night, he approaches a Samaritan woman at a well, he heals a man born without sight. In these stories, each person is seeking a new beginning, a different life, a deeper faith. What unfolds is an exchange filled with questions and exploration. Often, an unveiling occurs—assumptions are disrupted, a new perspective is revealed, and mystery grows.
This Lent, I invited you on a journey with me—a journey of answer-seeking and question-asking. (Questions are central to the Interim period.) Many of our weekly questions feel restorative (“Can these bones live?”). Some feel like a charge or challenge (“Who will you listen to?”). Some questions are hopeful and curious (“How do we begin again?”). Our questions won’t necessarily lead to answers, but they can help us find clarity and a new perspective. Ultimately, we pray they lead to a new beginning, a restoration, and a wider grace.
Like the characters in our Lenten scriptures, we are also seeking many things: clarity, connection, wonder, justice, and balance. We are seeking our calling, the sacred, and how to live as a disciple. Throughout the turbulence of the past few years, many of us are asking big questions about our lives and our faith. My hope is that this series will help us unpack some of those big questions in ways that are honest and faithful. Throughout this season, my hope is that you will continually ask yourself: what am I seeking? What is God seeking?
This Lent, I invite you to engage in the spiritual practice of seeking. I encourage you to stay curious, open, and nimble. I hope you will soften your assumptions and expand your perspectives. I pray that these questions will create a safe space to explore—to be drawn more deeply into the fullness of life, into the heart of God.
Available for everyone in the congregation will be daily devotional cards, a weekly devotional to help reflect on Sunday’s worship theme, and family support materials for the seven weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter. From worship to home let the question-asking, answer-seeking, and deep listening commence.