"Whoever would be my disciple must take up their own cross and daily follow me."

                                                                                                                             Luke 9:23

Dear People of St. David's,

I pray that you and yours are well as we come to the end of the season of Lent. I hope, too, that your time in the "wilderness", your time of trying to live your life a different way has opened the way for God to enter into your life a little more fully. If not, no worries. Sometimes God's timing doesn't always line up with our timing - kind of like my message last week talking about how God's wind in our lives blows like the warming winds of spring. Little did I imagine that the next day it would snow. We will have to wait a little longer for spring it appears.

Well, that can be the way our lives go with God. It's not always easy. It's not always what we hope or expect it to be. Sometimes the life with God is a difficult life. Yet it is the only life I know of that promises real, genuine life here and beyond the door of death.

Jesus knows that life can be hard and even when we turn our lives over to Him and try to follow in His ways, it can be like carrying a cross. It can be heavy and difficult. We find out that we die to things, just as we do in the life apart from following Jesus. As a good friend of mine in seminary liked to say (and still says), "When Jesus says, 'Come, follow me.' He's not skipping down the road as though there wasn't a care in His world or ours." Following the One who went to the cross means that there will be times when we go to the cross ourselves in a lot of different ways. The cross comes when we struggle to become our better selves as we have this Lent. The cross comes when we are misunderstood because of our faith or we don't always fit in. The cross comes when someone we know and love is struggling and we don't quite have the energy or ability to be much help. The cross comes when God's plans don't line up with ours.

Though it is not always easy to be a follower of Jesus and to take up our cross, we do not take up the cross alone. One who has gone before us and is showing the way reveals that in the cross is our salvation and our life. Whatever comes our way in this life, we can know that we are not alone and that because He has overcome it, He will empower us to overcome it, too.

As we enter into Holy Week this Palm Sunday, I encourage you to take up the cross and follow, even when springtime gives snow. Come and walk with Jesus through the week to see with what grace and elegance and love He carries His cross to open the way for our life with God.

See you in Church.

Grace and Peace,