Always Lent but never Easter

I mentioned once that I am much better at Advent than Christmas, with waiting for my Redeemer than rejoicing that he has come. It is even truer that I am better at Lent than Easter, with being broken over my sin than being resurrected in a living hope.

This year Easter didn’t seem to come at all, and I had an overwhelming feeling of being stuck in an eternal Lent. I began to wonder if the redemption I had been awaiting would ever come at all, and for a short horrific moment became almost sure that it wouldn’t. The White Witch has cast her spell as she did in the Chronicles of Narnia, and it is always Lent but never Easter.

In an effort to shift my gears into an illusive Resurrection season at a time when the only thing that seems to be resurrected is my sin, I have been reading the resurrection story from a different Gospel every morning. Today was Luke’s turn, and I read the story of two disciples on the way to Emmaus having heard rumors of a resurrection they had not seen for themselves.

“But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,” they told the disguised Jesus when he encountered them on the road.

And so did I. I had hoped that he was the one to redeem the city where I lived last year and the flawed soul of mine that stumbles around clumsily into the same shortcomings.

Perhaps when I stumble upon the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus, in the midst of my own disappointments of a redemption that never seems to happen, he may “interpret to [me] in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Perhaps my own understanding of the Messiah needs as much modification as those of his confused disciples.

When he bumps into me, I pray my unaware ears be open to allow my understanding of the Gospel to be rewritten.