Lenten Ponderings—Ordinary
Goofy cats posing for the camera. It’s a pretty ordinary sight around here with three extra cats we’re watching these days, two of whom are wonderfully photogenic! But so ordinary. I just realized this ordinary morning that we are just over a week from Palm Sunday, our remembrance of one of the most EXTRA-ordinary days in history. And just like the ordinariness of the cute cat today, the folks around Jesus at the time of that very first Easter probably thought it a rather ordinary time for them as well. Sure, it was the time leading up to Passover, but that celebration had been a part of life for more than a thousand years anyway, so was it really that out of the ordinary?
One of the things I miss most about having kids in school is that when they were there, they were always preparing for, anticipating and leading up to something special. Getting ready for a visit from a leprechaun, or even turning an otherwise ordinary day where someone recognized a fun happenstance—like a date of 3.14—into a special “Pi Day.” But now every day can easily slip into the ordinary.
Yet the ordinary is precisely when and where Jesus bursts in on the scene, turning the ordinary into an encounter with the Eternal—IF we have eyes to see. Even what might seem the dramatic of court intrigues and a harsh legal judgment and execution were pretty ordinary in a lot of peoples’ eyes in a time when Roman law as quick and firm. So for many people even around that very first Easter, it might have seemed a pretty ordinary week, if they weren’t close enough to see the Resurrection.
Yet it was a moment that changed the course of history.
We churchy people get a front row seat on the 50 yard line or center court as we come together with eyes wide open to see, and be a part of the Eternal breaking into, and changing the ordinary forever! Or, depending on what we’re looking at, we might just see the changing weather and have an ordinary smile for anticipating another ordinary Springtime in Ohio, or just get an ordinary little giggle with pictures of goofy critters.
Where is your focus through these ordinary days, so your eyes might get a glimpse of the extraordinary, the Eternal, in these coming days? Are your eyes open, is your heart open for a visit from the Holy Spirit to transform this ordinary season into a front row seat for this eternal victory?
Getting ready—Pastor Jim