This was the message of Good News that Bishop Craig Satterlee brought to us yesterday in worship. I think it incredibly timely (in a God’s timing sort of way) that Bishop Craig brought us this reminder just before we begin our Lenten journey with Ash Wednesday. At its core, Ash Wednesday brings to the forefront the simple fact that we are all mortal; we will all die. As we dig deeper into why we rub ashes on our foreheads, we come to understand that this day reminds us that we are not gods and instead are human beings that have been broken by sin and cannot possibly on our own attain the divine. So, we need Jesus. Not just in some “by and by when we die” kind of way. But moreso, we need Jesus in the NOW. We need Jesus to continually raise us from the death of our own greed and prejudice. We need Jesus to raise us from the death of our inability to love our enemies or our lack of compassion or our tendency toward excess while closing our hearts because “there is only so much to go around.” Jesus brings life out of death. He opens us up to a new way of being, a new way of seeing, a new way of living. He conquers death and urges us into this new life. Like Bishop Craig said, it won’t always be easy to embrace that new life. But ask yourself this; would God truly provide us this new life if it were something that is truly not the best for us? May this Lenten journey find you embracing your mortality that it may lead you to drink deeply from the living water of new life in Jesus Christ.