Black Belt Spirituality

It is Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene has just come to the tomb, still grieving, wanting to perhaps fully prepare the body of Jesus for burial, and she found it empty. We don’t know why she came so early.  It was dark, maybe early dawn, but also dark emotionally.  In the darkness, she runs to tell Peter and John (the disciple Jesus loved) that they, someone, has taken Jesus and he’s gone. Jesus is gone.  John’s gospel account of the resurrection is for me, the most intimate, the most personal.  While John may differ from the other gospels on how many women came to the tomb or when, only John shows the raw emotion that Mary was experiencing at the tomb. I can see this account being a performance as in a great play or movie. But half way through, being left at the tomb by Peter and John, Mary simply weeps.  Mary; This woman who had loved much. Arriving at the sealed tomb of the teacher whom she loved. And it is empty.  She is in shock. The tomb, which we told had been sealed by t

Growing up as a kid, like many kids, I paid no mind the church calendar; unless it was Christmas. I was a kid after all. When I was in high school, I began to explore my faith. I was enrolled in a Catholic school, while being confirmed into a Presbyterian Church.  That's when I began to notice the weird (to me) practice every Lent of my classmates walking around with smudges of ash on their forehead.  So what exactly is Ash Wednesday?  For some of my Protestant friends they find the day odd, and very Catholic. I do agree there is no biblical directive for us to celebrate Ash Wednesday. Just like there isn't a directive to celebrate Christmas or Easter. But there is at its core a great biblical theology of creation, sin, our mortality, grace and death.  It calls us to community in our shared brokenness and the humility of our mortality.  So we are entering the Lenten season. Christian’s worldwide mark the beginning of this season with Ash Wednesday. A day we make a visible