“Embracing the Uncertain:” The 2022 ADLA-LA Lenten and Holy Week Worship Series

“Embracing the Uncertain," the theme of and reference book for this year’s African Descent Lutheran Association - Los Angeles's Lenten journey, took us – through the testimony of our collection of congregations – on the path of self-examination. We were challenged to consider the many ways in which our lives are inextricably linked to the uncertainties in which we exist, the struggles, the losses, the pain and anguish that we experience, the times in which we ask God: “where are you?”

We heard and hopefully even read about the following degrees of uncertainty, perhaps contrasting those messages with stories or incidences from our recollection. In this pandemic period of the last three years, the uncertainty of mortality, as an example, resonated bitterly with me as I internalized the loss of 7 friends, several were among my graduating high school class; folk whose lives are inextricably linked with my own in so many indelible ways. The grace-given reminder that they reside with the Lord made those losses bearable, easing that inner pain a little each day.

How did you come to internalize each weekly theme associated with “Embracing the Uncertain?” Were you left in awe or wonder? Convicted in a new and unimaginable way? Did this Lenten journey seem more illuminating than those previously experienced?

A journey is the collection of countless steps and so too is this spiritual journey that we are on, one which afforded us time to reflect and ponder on “belief and faith”, “forgiveness and forgetfulness”, “worry and the unknown”, “death and dying”, “release and surrender”, as well as, “temptations and obedience”.

We depart the buoyant nature of each of these realities, concluding our trip through life’s uncertainties with the dawning of Easter; that great “getting up morning” when Christ in all of His heavenly splendor rose from the dead ensuring for us a new certainty. We embark on yet another journey of as many weeks from His resurrection to His ascension, as our Lord secures our place in the ‘mansion with many rooms’.

Happy Easter to all who call upon His name and may this Lenten journey hosted by ADLA reveal that newcomers to the faith have gathered who, too, have been adopted as children of Christ, Jesus!

He is Risen… He is risen, indeed!