As many of you have noticed, these past few weeks the Sunday congregation has been seated facing the east windows, in a semi circular arrangement. We moved into this configuration in mid February, to mark the season
of Lent. Lent is a solemn season, in which our focus turns inward, and, often, the directness of our Christian journey is obscured. It is a time for seeing those who journey alongside us, for helping ourselves and others find the way. In this sideways configuration, the centerpiece of worship is not our beautiful cross of light, but the simple wooden table where we break bread for the journey; and the harsher light coming from the plain window beyond.

Lent is a season for some discomfort and for looking at things from alternative perspectives “along the way,”….and therefore it seems important to pay attention to the discomfort or restlessness many of you have been kind enough to comment on, as you have reflected on worship during this season. Some have noticed that the sun coming through the east windows makes seeing the worship leaders a little more difficult. Others have shared that having “the cross beside us, instead of in front of us” is uncomfortable, and seems almost “wrong.” “It’s as if our attention is pulled from the cross, and is less clear to us. We have to strain to see the cross.”

This, too, seems symbolically significant to me. In the Lenten season, the texts of
scripture, week, by week, attend to the confusion and dread of the disciples
as they begin to grapple with Jesus’ prediction of his impending death. They
speak of the awkwardness of the journey toward Jerusalem, marked by embarrassing excess, frustrated confusion, heartbreaking betrayals, and surely, Jesus’ own very human dread and resistance to embracing the path he has chosen. So if we have found ourselves physically squinting into harsh light, a little disoriented as to our proper place, and straining toward a cross that was once always clearly before our eyes but is, in the moment, less easy to see and not entirely where it should be. . .maybe, in that, we are mirroring the paths of the disciples and Jesus.

On Passion Sunday, March 21, we turned our eyes toward the
smaller cross on the balcony. It was a time for reflection and community,
centered in the hearing of the choir’s powerful rendering of Mendelssohn’s
passion cantata, Christus., a time “away in a deserted place.” The cross
was behind us and before us as we heard sung and read the story of Passion
Sunday. With our Lenten journey coming to an end, we are gathering
our courage and our strength to face the Cross as Jesus did, when he
“turned his face toward Jerusalem.” Beginning on Palm Sunday, our sanctuary
will return to its more familiar forward-facing orientation, the beauty of
our rainbow celtic cross before us again