Grieving in Hope
by Andy Saperstein
My family and I lived in Quetta, Pakistan for two years in the early nineties. Quetta is a hot, dusty place with little shade and even less rain, so we really appreciated the foliage on the grape vine that grew along the verandah of the little cement block house where we lived. One spring, the time came to prune the vine, and one morning a man from the neighborhood came with his pruning shears to do it. When he finished his work an hour or so later, most of the leaves and branches from the vine lay in the dusty courtyard, and the shade and shelter we had come to appreciate so much were replaced by the starkness of sky and sun in that remote desert town. My wife cried, and I shared her sadness.
This week, on Ash Wednesday, we as a church will have embarked together on a forty day journey toward Jesus that the church has historically called Lent. During this time, we will share together in a process not unlike the pruning and grieving we experienced in Quetta twenty years ago. Like the gardener who came to our home that spring morning, we too will look at the vine that is our lives and permit God to prune away anything that might impede the purpose for which we exist – to bear fruit for Him. For unlike the gardener, we had lost sight of the reason for the vine in our courtyard, and we therefore grieved the loss of the leaves and twigs and tendrils that had grown up over the winter and stood in the way of the summer fruit to come. Unlike the gardener, we had lost sight of the fact that less foliage meant more fruit, that present loss meant future gain – we were grieving without hope.
Lent is historically a time when we, as followers of Christ, look at the undergrowth in our lives over the past year and determine what it is that stands in the way of the fruit that God wants to bear in and through us. Some of that undergrowth is sin that we have grown all too comfortable with and that must be cut off and thrown into the courtyard. Other undergrowth, however, is not sin as such, but consists of unnecessary distraction and complexity in our lives that, when stripped away for forty days, permits the Spirit’s searching and cleansing sunlight to fall once again on our verandah, and allows us once again to see the cloudless sky of the Father’s purposes beyond. But as we do this, we feel vulnerable and barren and exposed, and we grieve.
As we, a community of leaders, walk together into this season of Lent and lead our groups in the same, let us not in the starkness of what we lose and cast aside lose sight of the reason we do it – that we might joyfully share in the victory celebration that is Easter, and in the fruit to come. We together share in the Lord’s triumph over all the works of the Devil, over sin and over death, and will soon forget the leaves and branches in the courtyard.
During Lent this year, let us grieve together, to be sure, but let us do so in hope.
1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)
