Lent with Lazarus ~ Trimming Back the Branches

 

Yesterday we held the question, what needs to be unbound and unwrapped in your life?  What confines you in ways that cut off circulation?  We also celebrated that there are certain covenants, agreements, or responsibilities that can bind us in beautiful ways.

 

As we hold this truth close to our hearts, are there new insights this morning into the holy covenants or divine duties in your life?  Continue to make a list of the things you choose to carry. 

 

I invite you to focus on the image of tomb that became a womb for Lazarus.  Here he was confined, only to have a transformation.  Here he was in the darkness, only to encounter new life when the stone rolled away.  Jesus shows us the power of renewed life.  Jesus opens us to the truth that not every death is a period; rather sometimes things end so that something new might begin.  This is the invitation from Sunday of cutting back a branch that is blossoming.  Sometimes we trim back that which is life-giving to let loose, unwrap, grow in new directions.  This is not a muscle we exercise or explore very much.  Instead, we believe that if it is good, leave it alone.  To be sure, you need to be prayerful and careful when you trim life back.  You can’t just hack or whack away.  Sometimes you cut just a bit, or a small section, to see what happens.  Better yet, remember from Sunday, Jesus invites us to surrender the clippers to God to cut back the branches of life carefully, lovingly.  This takes time, patience, and persistence.  It is always easier when dealing with plants to just tear everything out and start over.  But in doing so, we may eliminate the very activity or person or place that was feeding our souls. 

 

On Sunday, I invited you to list every activity and thing you are doing from your calendar last month.  To ponder, with God, what was life-giving and what felt draining.  To open your heart to God’s wisdom, letting God cut back with the clippers.  If you did not have a chance to do this yet, I encourage you to do so now.  This is very similar to surveying the Mason jars on the shelves of your soul.  What is good and what is expired?  Lent is the season to take stock of all that is within us and around us.  When we do this, we arrive at Easter morning aware of where there is life and hope and God’s love leaping forth.  May your prayerful ponderings this day open you to the One who is the Source of grace and love in our life.  Amen.