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A Lenten Message from Bishop LaTrelle Miller Easterling
"Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing." -- Joel 2:12-13a
During the Super Bowl held on Sunday, Feb. 11, there were ads entitled “He Gets Us,” one of which portrayed scenes of foot-washing between individuals often at odds with one another. The commercial ended with the words, “Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet.” The ad has aroused significant controversy for several reasons, but chief among them is whether the message is genuine or a facade. Can those who funded the ad be trusted with the message it promotes, or is there a conflicting agenda?
Individuals will need to do their own research and draw their own conclusions about the veracity of that controversial commercial. Whether or not the ad campaign is to be trusted is a matter of debate, whether or not Jesus of Nazareth can be trusted is not.
As we enter into this Lenten season to pray, listen, reflect and repent, the Jesus who journeys with us can be trusted with our hearts, minds, souls and bodies -- with our very lives. We need not come cautiously or with suspicion. Jesus does not come as the world comes; Jesus does not judge as the world judges; Jesus does not love as the world loves. As we walk this 40-day journey, we can completely surrender ourselves to Jesus and allow him to continue the beautiful work of transformation in our lives.
Too often, we enter this season in drudgery, void of all joy and hope. While it is a season that reminds us of our finite humanity and anticipates the death of our Lord and Savior, it is also a path to rebirth, renewal and resurrection. Christ bids us come, he creates in us a pure heart and renews a steadfast spirit. That bidding does not originate from a place of disgust, rejection or shame, but pure love. That bidding invites us into a deeper relationship with God and God’s creation. It calls us to love ourselves more earnestly and to love one another without condition. That bidding comes that we might be fully liberated from the destructive powers of this world. The healing and transformation we need is not to be healed from ourselves as God created us, but to be healed from the ways we have learned to oppress and destroy God’s creation, the ways we have learned to hate one another, the ways we have learned to hate ourselves.
This journey is really a journey of healing -- allowing ourselves to be healed. It’s healing us from anything that separates us from God; healing us from anything that prevents us from taking on the mind of Christ; healing us from our collective brokenness; healing us from the inside out. As this transformation occurs, we begin to see the world differently. We put aside fear, mistrust, arrogance and privilege, and begin to live as people who are sincerely willing to wash one another’s feet. We embody forgiveness and reconciliation. We embrace one another in agape love. We humbly stand as one at the foot of the cross. That is our Lenten journey. May it be so.
Bishop LaTrelle Easterling
Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula Delaware Conferences
The United Methodist Church
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