Yesterday, Dan gave a great sermon about Ezekiel 37, the dry bones becoming flesh, the power of hope in the Holy Spirit. If you missed it, you can watch it here:
This topic and Scripture are very timely for April 3, and I have been reflecting on hope for many weeks now. In many ways, April feels like a time of hope, and in many ways it does not.
Sports
In our home, we organize our lives around sporting events. We often call the month of February and the first two weeks of March "The Sports Desert" because it's the most depressing time of the year. When we lived in Pittsburgh, you're pretty much guaranteed that 6 weeks will have 1 maybe 2 days of full sunlight, and there will more than likely be one more big snow to cap off the season. The Super Bowl ends the weekly football gatherings for the year. Professional Hockey and Basketball are in that middle part of the marathon season when it almost gets a little boring. College basketball is happening but doesn't really get exciting until March. And of course, Major League Baseball hasn't begun yet.
The drought begins to let up in the beginning of March when the pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training, when the trade deadline hits for the NHL, and the college basketball teams (both men and women) start to heat up. There is something electric that begins inside me the first time the Pittsburgh Pirates update their Facebook page and as ESPN starts to spend some time on Bracketology. That electricity builds through March Madness, the opening series of baseball season, Stanley Cup playoffs, the NFL Draft, all the way to midsummer with the Home Run Derby (arguably the best all-star sports moment of the year. And by then it's just a few more weeks until we have college football and the NFL starting back up, and we Yinzers (from Pittsburgh) begin to calculate the possibilities of a weekend when the Pirates, the Penguins, the Steelers, and the Pitt Panthers all play at home.
There's something more too it of course. Today, being opening day for the Pirates, the possibilities are endless and there are 160 games left to win. On the first day of March Madness, there's the possibility of reliving the one time ever when I picked the champion. Every team has a chance, and every year there's a surprise. There is this bubble of hope that begins to grow in the spring for sports; we believe in the underdog and commit ourselves afresh to the team that we believe will not let us down. There's a new passion and excitement in our daily routine: we look forward to discussing our brackets, congratulating our Gamecock fan friends, and mercilessly debating our rival pals. Watching folks running around in the sunshine inspires us to get out into the beautiful weather and enjoy it...perhaps in a lawn chair, but outside nonetheless.
Spring sports bring me hope, energy, and excitement.
Spring sports bring me hope, energy, and excitement.
Jesus
Of course, we also participate in Lent, the Passion, and the celebration of Easter Sunday. In Lent, we commit ourselves to the hope that tomorrow we will be greater servants than we were today. We believe that the more we confess our sin and our faith, the more we will grow in our discipleship of Jesus. And we patiently wait for that beautiful morning when Jesus leaps from the grave in victory.
There is lots of hope to be found in the beautiful Easter lilies, brightly colored Easter bonnets, Spring Break vacations, and the adorable decorations of eggs, chicks, and bunnies that surround us. While the secular version of Easter may have nothing to do with Jesus, the colors and images do give us that same spirit of hope and excitement for the season.
Dry Bones and Congestion
Sometimes it's easy to see all of these bright colors, exciting events, and joyful celebrations as an easy time of hope for our lives. But other times it doesn't feel that way. For me, the beginning of spring means extra allergy medications, a tablespoon of local honey every morning, and lathering Vicks all over my neck and face before bed. It means lilies, hyacinths, and pine straw, which make my nose itch, my eyes water, and my sinuses swell. It means an almost certain sinus infection in late April, and multiple trips to the car wash per week to get that pollen drop off my car and away from my nostrils.
Spring means another holiday without a loved one who has died. It means there are soccer games to get to or varsity teams to not make. It means the inevitable aggravation of taxes and the exhaustion of lawn work, social events, musicals, sports, picnics, and graduations. It means sometimes feeling guilty for not getting more done; it means one less hour of sleep for Daylight savings.
Sometimes, Spring still feels like dry bones, like the idea of this field of dry bones taking on flesh seems utterly impossible. Sometimes, I think the sunshine will make me feel a little better, but instead it feels sharp, piercing, and glaring. Sometimes, Spring feels more like the desperation of Good Friday than the celebration of Easter Sunday. We are caught in the grim reality of death found in Ash Wednesday, and the confession of guilt and self-discipline associated with Lent.
Sometimes the process of hope isn't something that can be fixed in a day, or even 3 days, or even perhaps the whole season. Hope isn't always an instantaneous gratification, but a slow march toward summer. It becomes celebrating the little victories (including getting out of bed in the morning!) and forgiving ourselves for the challenges.
Confessions
I must confess that this Spring for me has been a season of dry bones. I've spent time caring for my mother after surgery and my husband during a particularly terrible batch of strep throat. The Pasta Night and Pine Straw fundraisers have been full of unexpected challenges and additional burdens I wasn't expecting, leaving me one step behind. I feel unprepared almost every day; I leave my extremely messy office with a feeling of being unfinished every day. As those around me have been suffering from loss, stress, illness, and injury, I have felt at times that my well is too dry to give good comfort and care to others.
As one person said to me, sometimes I feel so behind I think I'm in first.
It's the first day of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball season, and it's also Day 1 of Spring Cleaning for Pastor Lindsay. I am beginning the slow arduous process of physically going through, cleaning, and organizing the piles of *stuff* that overtaken my office and my home. Every inch will be a battleground that will require me to fight for it, but I will fight for every inch. (If you think that sounds melodramatic, you should take a gander at the pig sty in my office, and your mind will be changed). Through this physical process, I am working to emotionally and spiritually prepare myself for the next months of ministry in this church. Summer is coming, and with it transformative, beautiful experiences emerge with youth at Montreat, mission trips, and summer after-church lunches. I am gleaning from the stuff and the memories both the wonderful ways the Holy Spirit has shown up here in this place and the ways that we need to change to get back onto the right path.
I invite each of you to join me on this spiritual journey of spring cleaning: what can we get rid of in order to make space for what really matters? How can we emerge from the clutter with greater spiritual energy for the days to come?
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