interlude

from 'As surely as the Sun Rises', A slice of infinity newsletter:

"...On the scene of a people who had lived with God’s silence for 400 years, Jesus suddenly and scandalously appeared like a crocus in a still-thawing ground. There had not been a word from God since the prophet Malachi. The heavens were cold and silent, and hope remained dormant within time’s wintry grasp. But beneath the frozen ground of apathy, sin, and death, the Spirit of God was stirring. Spring was on its way. Lent reminds us to stay awake to the knowledge that this hope is still so: “Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth” (Hosea 6:3). If God is the maker of all creation then every season has a purpose, and today we are waiting for spring.

Of course, the journey to the Cross may take us through bleak and despairing seasons that make sanctification seem an unending winter. But we are being drawn to the very Cross that held the harbinger of spring and the hope of resurrection. As surely as the sun rises he will appear--again."

by Jill Carattini