Familiar – Unfamiliar Territory…

Cross, originally uploaded by Run Steve Run.

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent starts this week. It marks 40 days until Good Friday where Jesus followers prepare for Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter. Our family has begun to incorporate the church calendar as a compass for our own reflecting on the story of God. Each season we wrestle with what it looks like to anticipate Christmas during Advent or focus on the cross during Lent. Our discussions tend to be a bit humorous. Tonight we read Luke 8.9-14 and talked about the difference between the proud pastor and the humble rascal. We then talked about what it would look like for us to give up something for lent as a way for us to pray for our own humility, our need for God and our continued commitment to personal reflection. The girls came up with some incredible ideas… to give up using their lips, refraining from using the word “the,” and committing to not clean their rooms. Nice. They landed on giving up soda… and are already counting the days.

I’ve heard it said that when we reflect on the story of God, we enter into familiar and unfamiliar territory. The story doesn’t really change. The snapshots are familiar. Sometimes it is so familiar that we can gloss over a passage or story or reading because we know how it goes and what the point is going to be.

But there is an unfamiliar element. When we reflect, ponder and meditate, there are times when are taken to deeper understanding and appreciation for the story of God. Sin might seem bigger, grosser, uglier. Grace becomes more beautiful. Love is more far-reaching than we ever imagined or we are challenged to demonstrate. Gospel is multi-dimensional. The familiar is wonderfully unfamiliar and mysterious.

I think Lent leads us into this familiar, unfamiliar territory. It challenges our efficient Christianity and calls for us to ponder the infinite depths of God’s person and story. I believe the Spirit of God speaks through the word and his people with a freshness that stirs us and calls us to of reconsider a year’s worth of constructed patterns of living and even the renovation of our rote Christian behaviors.

Personally, I’m tempted to run to one side or the other. I can stay in my safe, familiar territory that I feel I have under control in my Christian life and politely pass (or ferociously fight) on taking it any further. I can, on the other hand, run after the sexy, unfamiliar territory because it’s fresh, new and improved. Staying in the former leaves me dead. Running to the latter, leaves me empty. And the call of Lent is to walk in the realm of the familiar-unfamiliar.

On a broader level, I wonder if the Lenten spirit it what is needed in the (especially western) Church. The power struggle seems to be between preserving the familiar or pushing the unfamiliar. It may be the root of the music wars or the existing-emergent tension. I long for a familiar-unfamiliar posture. And I think it starts with repentance and ashes…