I can’t believe we’re halfway through Lent! Spring is officially here, and Easter is right around the bend.
I’m reading a new book from one of my favorite teachers, Dr. Andrew Root, called Evangelism in an Age of Despair: Hope beyond the Failed Promise of Happiness. I know, it sounds like a bummer of a title (so Lutheran). But it gets at the core of our modern ailment, where we’re so transfixed on ‘happiness’ as our highest good, but everyone is… Sad. And lonely. And anxiety-ridden. And exhausted. And…. Yeah.
This book will be coloring my thinking for quite some time. (It deeply influenced my recent homily below.) Though I highly recommend it to both spiritual leaders and layfolk, the basis of it all is this: Christ follows us into sorrow and ministers to us there. (And therefore, we are called to follow others into sorrow and minister to them there. Not through sales pitches or spiffy arguments. But through friendship.)
This book has been an excellent Lenten companion, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.