The snow removal contractor had finished up clearing my walks and driveway, when I saw a squirrel emerge from its nest high up on a Bradford tree. A few hours later, the snow revealed the tracks of a rabbit, a housecat, and yet another squirrel paying a visit to my backyard. Each set of tracks was a reminder that in the dead of a snowy hard winter, life is all around us.

Lent says that, too.

After forty days and forty nights of rain, Noah stays in the ark until a dove returns with a sign that life has returned to the earth.

After miles of traveling, and years of waiting Abram looks to the stars and puts his faith in promise of a new name until the day a ninety-nine year old Sarah and a one hundred year old Abraham are parents to Isaac.

After years of praying, and countless days in the desert, Moses ascends to the top of Mt. Sinai, and returns with word of the ways that will keep Israel living with God in the Promised Land.

Miles from home with too many scores to count between them, God promises the exiles in Babylon a new covenant in which their sins will be remembered no more, the written on each heart, so they will each know the Lord.

Under cover of night, a heart bent on God comes to a young rabbi named Jesus who Nicodemus believes to be sent by God to reveal the kingdom of God, and goes home with a born again life.

On a dark Friday, Jesus is crucified. One disciple has betrayed him. Another has denied him. Many more have deserted him. Only the few at his cross hear him pray as a God forsaken soul. One of them is Mary, his mother, whom Jesus commends to the care of John. After promising Paradise to the thief on the cross alongside him, Jesus offers his spirit into the hands of his Father, the curtain of the temple is torn in two, an earthquake springs long dead saints from the grave, and three days later an empty tomb proclaims that in his death there is life.

Life is all around us.

Each rainbow is a sign of God tied to our lives. Each word of God a call to choose and live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Christ’s empty tomb a once and forever moment that frees us to give God this day and every tomorrow. 

Pastor Skip