Here we are in mid-Lent with the traditional “rose” Sunday vestments for the 4 th Sunday of Lent. It is also known as Laetare Sunday from the Latin meaning “rejoice”.
I don’t know about you, but there is a lot about our lives and the world situation that dulls my sense of rejoicing these days. Oh, I do love those occasional warm days that remind us of spring. I see the robins back in my yard and hear the beautiful bird songs in the early mornings. My mind turns toward the garden and the delicious things that will soon begin to grow there.
But the world is at war. And there is nothing jubilant about that. People are dying, the atmosphere is being filled with toxic fumes and smoke, people’s homes and roads and schools and workplaces are destroyed. For millions, fear is a constant companion. On the one hand it appears distant and far away. We can watch on our screens as if in a video game. But it’s very real for our fellow human beings, God’s creatures just as we are, who suffer in the nightmare.
There’s no way to put a rose-colored patina on the face of war.
But we are not without hope. As we approach Holy Week in the coming final stretch of Lent, we’re reminded of the suffering of Jesus, put to death by religion and empire to silence the proclamation that the world is God’s, and that God’s kingdom prevails. God’s realm of justice and love for all humanity and for all the creation cannot ultimately be destroyed.
So we live in this tension. Desperately wanting to rejoice while living in a world of deep purple. Maybe rose, part way between the purple of grief and the white of jubilance is the right color after all.