NOTE FROM PASTOR J R FOR ‘PINK’ SUNDAY, MARCH 19, 2022
This Sunday is the Fourth Sunday IN Lenten. Liturgically it is also called “Laetare Sunday.” Laetare in Latin means “Rejoice.” During the austere period of Lent, Rejoice Sunday was introduced at the midway point as a day of celebration, encouraging the faithful to look forward to the end of this penitential season and to the joy in anticipation of the Resurrection. To visually reflect rejoicing, the liturgical color is “Pink” or “Rose.” At Covenant we call it “Pink Sunday.”
The assigned gospel text is a celebratory story of Jesus healing a blind man. It begins with Jesus’ disciples asking Jesus “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Today we would ask, “Why did God allow that to happen?” Imagine … there was once a school of thought that believed a person could sin prior to their birth, while still in the mother’s womb.
It’s interesting that Jesus does not answer their question with any specificity other than saying “Neither this man nor his parents sinned …” But Jesus also answers a question they didn’t ask, “What good can this tragedy produce?” by saying, “he was born blind so that God’s work might be revealed in him.” Perhaps today, Jesus might say, “Bad things happen to good people. No one’s sin caused this man to be born blind; but God can use this tragedy for God’s good purpose.” With that, Jesus’ actions take this man’s “journey from blindness to sight.” Certainly, a reason to rejoice.
We all have areas in our lives in which we are blind to the sight of God’s love, grace and forgiveness. Let your Lenten Journey this year be “a journey from blindness to sight” of those gifts of God.
And join us, in pink if you can, on this Rejoice/Pink Sunday, in-person, by Zoom or Facebook Livestream. Let’s celebrate as my sermon title says: “Lent – A Journey from Blindness to Sight,” based on “John 9:1-11, 24-25.”
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