Lent as pilgrimage, Lent as gardening

I am about to leave (in two days) on pilgrimage to Israel as part of a group of twenty Protestant clergy from all over the country and of all different denominations. We are all between 35 and 55, and all have been ordained at least ten years. The pilgrimage consists of about a week in Galilee, in Tiberias, and about a week in Jerusalem. I have been very busy trying to get all the parish ducks in a row before I leave.

Today is Ash Wednesday, and at both of our services we will process back out into the world singing a hymn that marks the beginning of Lent and restates its purposes. This year, the words of the hymn are particularly meaningful:

Eternal Lord of love, behold your Church
walking once more the pilgrim way of Lent,
led by your cloud by day, by night your fire,
moved by your love and towards your presence bent:
far off yet here--the goal of all desire.

So daily dying to the way of self,
so daily living to your way of love,
we walk the road, Lord Jesus, that you trod,
knowing ourselves baptized into your death,
so we are dead and live with you in God.

If dead in you, so in you we arise,
you the firstborn of all the faithful dead;
and as through stony ground the green shoots break
glorious in springtime dress of leaf and flower,
so in the Father's glory shall we wake.

I will literally walk the road that Jesus trod in Jerusalem. I expect that the experience will be very moving. But there is the journey of the feet and there is the journey of the heart. I am blessed to take the journey of the feet. But it will be useless if I do not also make the journey with my heart.

Two parishioners of mine are elderly and the husband is struggling with his health. He has some sort of auto immune disease that is attacking the nerves in his legs and feet. For him, the pilgrimage to the bathroom or the kitchen can be a via crucis. He has been known to crawl the distance, like a medieval penitent. This man is brilliantly intelligent and well educated. He has never been to Israel. I am taking him "in my back pocket" on this trip. I hope to see and hear and smell and taste and touch on his behalf. I hope to write about the experience and take pictures that I can share with him when I return.

My parishioner may have a heart pilgrimage that takes him greater distances than my journey to Israel takes me. May we both walk the road that Jesus trod, knowing ourselves baptized into his death.

But there is another very important Lenten metaphor, and that is the metaphor of gardening. In Lent the days lengthen (two words etymologically related in English thanks to the Norman conquest). The sun warms the late winter soil. God the Farmer comes and digs things up and turns them over, a process that may be painful, if refreshing. Then we are ready to be fruitful gardens that offer nourishment and refreshment to others.