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From the Pastor's Desk

The month of March signals the official beginning of spring, but with the very mild winter that we’ve experienced this year, it has looked and felt like spring for some time now. As I write this, it’s a sunny and beautiful day. Plants and trees have been budding and some even blooming already. I’ve been thumbing through garden and seed catalogues, getting ideas and making plans for the upcoming planting season. Maybe it’s my roots on the farm, but there is something about the earth and working in the soil that I find very satisfying. Even the words “human” and “humus” (organic part of the soil) sound similar, connecting one with the other. The solemn words that we heard in worship on Ash Wednesday when the cross of ashes was traced on our foreheads remind us: “Remember, you are dust and to dust you will return.” 

As the weather warms up, a strange phenomenon occurs – something I call “garden fever.” People (myself included) want to get out and prepare the soil in our garden beds for future planting. Turning over the soil releases a wonderful earthy smell that takes me back to spring plowing on the farm. Plowing that first furrow across the field was very important because all of the other furrows depended on the straightness of this first one. If the first furrow was crooked, all of the other furrows would also be crooked. What to do? Fix your eyes on a point all the way across the field – a tree in the fence line or a rag that you tied to the fence itself. Keeping your eyes fixed on this point on the horizon enabled you to plow a straight furrow. 

In God’s Word, we read this: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, scorning the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). For the child of God, we are called to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus – not unlike the farmer who must keep his eyes fixed on that landmark across the field in order to plow a straight furrow. What happens when we get distracted and take our eyes off Jesus? Like that farmer, what follows are some very crooked lines that are evident to anyone who looks at them. So many times in our journey of faith we veer off course because we aren’t looking to Jesus, but looking at other things that can divert us and draw us away from the Savior. This Lenten season is a call for each one of us to live out in real time what we sing about in worship: “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Joel 2:13). 

What causes you to become distracted in faith? What makes you veer off-course and lose focus? What do those crooked furrows look like when you do not keep your eyes fixed on Jesus? The good news is that no matter how crooked our furrows may be, Jesus has come to set them straight. He did this not by telling us, “Hey! You can do better than that. Just try harder!” He didn’t do this with mere words, but with the sacrifice of his very life on the tree of the cross as payment for all of our crooked ways, what Scripture calls sin. Jesus came to be the atoning sacrifice for all of our sin and disobedience. Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25). 

This Lenten season is one of preparation. It is not an end in itself, but gives way to something even more important: Easter! Good Friday must lead to Easter Sunday. The crucifixion must lead to the resurrection. Death must give way to life. Through it all, by the power of the Holy Spirit who is at work in us, we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who died for us that we might have life in him.