Just Passed the Cross

This week we start a journey and personal pilgrimage. In Advent, we journey to the manger but in the Lent season we journey to the cross. But that is not our ultimate destination. We must journey past the cross and to the empty tomb. I heard a story a few years ago about a Stations of the Cross Wilderness walk. This was a self-guided tour that had been some what neglected for years. One day a young man was going through the twelve stations of the cross and eventually arrived at the foot of the cross. It was there that the trail ended but he happened to look beyond the cross and see an old path that was grown over with weeds and brush. He decided to take the rarely traveled trail, making his way through the weeds and briers. Soon he came upon the thirteenth station which was an empty tomb. It was there that he realized that many people stop at the cross and never make their way to the empty tomb. But is that not the ultimate stop. If Jesus had only died on the cross he would have just been another martyr but instead he became the one that conquered death and gave us the opportunity for eternal life. I hope that this Lent Season you will travel with my just past the cross, down and old grown over path and rediscover the reason you fell in love with Jesus. That reason being because he first loved us.