Ah, the season of Lent greets us again, and like spring, it comes with a host of colors, sounds, and conversations. Pastors are posting clever slogans and a Lenten sermon series. Pictures of children with ash crosses on their foreheads fill our social media feeds. Purple banners decorate the churches. People like me try to post some new take on old traditions. Or some ‘spiritual’ priests predictably revolt against the droning repetition of patterns in the Christian life. Ironically, they, too, become part of the unceasing repeated liturgy of the church calendar.

This year, I have realized I’m just saying the same thing I did last year. No doubt, I try to put a spin on it to get people invigorated and engaged. But I’ve probably said it before. Part of me hates routine. Even every week, I do the same thing: preach my heart out on Sunday only to begin studying for another sermon. I walk back and forth from house to office. Over and over.

But so goes the universe. The planet revolves on its axis every 24 hours and around the sun every 365 days. The solar system does the same. Schools open in the fall and close in summer. We gather at grandma’s for Christmas, then Easter. Over and over. The economy goes up and down. There are wars and rumors of wars. Kingdoms ascend and disappear. From the outside, it would be very hard to say there is any evolution, but only a revolving. There are no surprises really. We choose not to see the patterns. We all are reading a script, regardless of culture, with tragic characters driven by selfishness and death yet also desiring love and security. It’s really wild, yet so tame.

So, no one can say they aren’t religious. Every human being follows a creed and subsequent moral code. Every human being lives on habits and routines, rituals and ceremonies. We are highly religious. You can’t escape that. The question is only-what is your religion? What are you revolving around? What do your routines, habits, scripts, and rituals flow from?

St. Paul tells us in Colossians 1, “Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all things were created, visible and invisible in heaven and on earth, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Sin spun mankind off its proper orbit and whirled us off alone into our own little universes revolving recklessly around the frail and shallow gravity of our disconnected being. Like a blackhole, we suck everything in, even light, even those we say we love. Yet God has drawn us back to Himself in Jesus Christ. With a cry, “It is finished,” Jesus outstretched hands pulled everything back, every molecule in every corner of the universe, even dead and destroyed things. 

In baptism, you were pulled back into orbit around the true center of all things. He has given you new patterns, routines, and seasons. He has given you a new script and liturgy. He has given you songs to sing. 

So we revolve every year, repeating the seasons, confessing and forgiving, praying and rejoicing, gathering every Lord’s day, and dispersing to our little routines of loving our neighbor, our enemies. Every year, we follow the same story of a God who loves us, adoring Him in the manger, listening to His teachings that we have heard a thousand times before, mourning over our sins, rejoicing in our forgiveness, watching Him on the cross, walking out of the tomb, ascending into Heaven and reigning today. Over and over, we religiously pattern our lives around Him, who is our Life.

So we do Lent like we did last year. It all seems so boring. But God is very religious. If you think you get tired of hearing you are forgiven, eating His body and blood, repenting and forgiving, think of God. He doesn’t stop. He is as predictable as Tigers baseball. He keeps picking us up when we wander, forgoing us when we sin, speaking to us through his preachers. 

Perhaps instead of always wanting to break the life patterns in Christ, we give in to them, lean into them, embrace them, and have joy in them. What’s wrong with a boring and predictable life? What’s wrong with repeating a dialogue that ends with “you are forgiven?” What’s wrong with participating in the cosmic drama about a God who loves sinners and will raise them on the last day?  Let the litany of the Sunday stay on repeat so that it is so familiar that you know exactly what God is going to say and do.