Dan's Marinations

"Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you,"  I Kings 19:7 In my previous post, I made the admittedly crude parallel between running a marathon and Lenten discipline. I'll stretch that connection a little more now.  Marathons have built in water and aid stations.  Every 2 or 3 miles there's be a water station, and there will normally be several water stops that also have first aid available for the inevitable runners who get injured.  Brief, but regular opportunities to replenish are essential. The journey is too great to complete without them. I can't help but think of the great prophet Elijah, who must be the patron saint of runners.  He had outrun King Ahab's chariot from Mt. Carmel to Jezreel.  Then, when confronted by Jezebel's threats to lop off his head, he ran again.  From Jezreel in the very northern part of the northern kingdom of Israel he ran all the way to Beersheba, near the southernmost part of southern kingdom of Judah. ...

On Wednesday night, many of us will gather in our churches for an Ash Wednesday service.  We will leave with ash smudges on our foreheads and solemn (not so solemn vows) of what we will give up for Lent.  Then during these six+ weeks of Lent we will have more somber music in worship.  The sermons in church may in one way or another deal with very serious weighty matters.  We will be a little on edge because of the missing chocolate, caffeine, soda, etc. that we have given up for Lent.  The other disciplines of lent can be a real burden.  But to what purpose is all of this?  This strange ritual with the ashes is only the beginning of a journey, a journey that always has as its ending the darkness of the cross of Christ. Recently I have also been thinking that I've been running now a little over twenty years.  The fall of 2013 will mark the 20th anniversary of my first marathon.  In Oct. 1993 I completed the Marine Corps Marathon in Washing...