Beloved
By Vicar Lisa Rygiel
There is a beautiful writer and poet by the name of Jan Richardson. You have heard some of her work if you have attended our Blue Christmas services the last few years. In a recent blog, she talks about wildernesses, those we choose and those we do not. It is quite different to enter a wilderness journey on our own accord rather than finding ourselves in the middle of one outside our choosing.
In this blog she speaks of Jesus, who sets out on his 40-day journey into the wilderness. She reminds her reader that just before he sets out, he was newly baptized and had just heard his name called from the heavens, “You are my Son, the Beloved (Luke 3:22).
Beloved. With the waters of the Jordan still clinging to him, Jesus carries that word, that name, with him into the desert. As he encounters hunger, thirst, isolation, and everything else that meets him in the wilderness—including the devil—the knowledge of himself as the Beloved tells him nearly everything he needs to know about who he is and what he is here to do.
We too are beloved. Beloved is the message of Lent. I share with you a poem that Jan posted from her book Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons.
Beloved Is Where We Begin
If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what
this journey is for.
I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.
But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.
I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.
—Jan Richardson
From Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
March 16 -- 10 a.m. Sunday Worship with Communion
Announcements
E-formation – First Sunday of Lent, March 16
Lent is the time for the renewal of our baptismal covenant. Each reading gives us a picture of our need—no children, no homeland, enemies around, a hungry fox—and each presents us with an image of salvation—descendants, a home, citizenship, protective wings. This is one of the few Sundays in which Christ is compared to a mother.
Luke 13:31-35
We are like helpless chicks; a fox is lurking; and Christ is our mother hen. Lent is a time to cast out demons and to await the third day when Christ finishes his work of salvation. We give to Jesus Christ the divine “name of the Lord.”
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
The Spirit of God, manifest as fire, visits us with the promise of life: a life imaged both as multiple descendants and as a homeland. Like Abram, we believe in this promise, and such faith counts as righteousness. In the cross, Christ takes on the lot of the slain animals.
Philippians 3:17—4:1
Now we are those who are citizens of heaven—an activist image, an urban picture. During Lent we join with Paul in awaiting our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: “Lord,” the divine title we Christians give to “Jesus,” which is the given name “Joshua,” whom we honor as “Christ,” the one anointed by God to transform the world.
Zion's Lutheran Church
A Reconciling in Christ Community
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