Dear Partner in Ministry,
Years ago I heard an NPR This I believe essay that stayed with me. The author described the practice of mending clothes -- hemming a skirt, patching jeans, darning socks -- and the surprising comfort it brings. "Mending doesn't say, 'This never happened.' Mending says...something was surely broken here, but with God's grace it will rise to new life."
In the Christian tradition, crosses take many forms -- ornate or plain, empty or bearing Christ's body -- but they all point to the same promise: God's insistence on moving from death to new life -- the hope that there is nothing so broken, so cruel, or so evil that it is outside of God's ability to redeem.
We are in the middle of the forty days of Lent, the season of the church year when we journey with Jesus toward the cross and the empty tomb. It is the season for reflection, for honesty, and for renewal. What within you might be broken and in need of repair? What in the world is torn and in need of mending?
Look to the cross.
Something was surely broken here.
But with God's grace, it will rise to new life.
Peace,
Jessica
