Mending: Grief, Lazarus and Love that Stitches Us Back to Life
John 11:1–44 Grace and peace, beloved. Welcome to the first Sunday of Lent—forty days of slowing down, looking honestly at our lives, and turning toward God. Scriptural Greek names that special kind of turning with a beautiful word: metanoia — most often rendered in English in our scriptures as repentance. Repentance then is intended as a change of heart and mind, a re‑orientation of our lives. In this season we aren’t polishing ourselves into perfection; we are turning back toward God, turning back toward love. This year our guiding image for these weeks of Lent is mending —the kind of repair that makes things useful again, yes, but the kind of repair that also leaves evidence that something has happened here. Can you picture in your mind’s eye a piece of clothing that has been mended? The threads of the repair show. The stitches tell the truth. Re...