The Way of Lent: Final Blessing

You Have Come Through the Wilderness
A Blessing for the One Who Stayed

You have walked slowly.
You have stayed when it would have been easier to rush.
You have knelt, fasted, breathed, broken, waited.
You have passed through silence and struggle,
through scent and shadow,
through the fire that flickered
and the tomb that closed.

And now, you stand in the light of resurrection—
not because the grief is gone,
but because Love has gone deeper still.

You did not arrive here by accident.
You arrived because you stayed.

And that is a holy, holy thing.

Reflection Points for Holy Week & Easter Morning

Palm Sunday

  • What have I shouted in joy, only to find it echoed in sorrow?

  • What did I expect of Jesus that He gently overturned?

Holy Monday

  • What needs to be cleared from the temple of my heart?

  • Where is grief asking me to make space for justice?

Holy Tuesday

  • What questions have I been afraid to ask?

  • What truth is Jesus speaking to me in quiet, unflinching ways?

Holy Wednesday

  • What silences have partnered with fear in me?

  • Where am I being invited to stay, even when it aches?

Maundy Thursday

  • Where is love asking me to kneel?

  • Whose feet am I being called to wash—not with water, but with presence?

Good Friday

  • What have I seen die in this season?

  • Can I trust that love does not leave, even when the light goes out?

Holy Saturday

  • Can I honor the waiting without rushing to resolution?

  • What have I entrusted into God’s silence?

Easter Sunday

  • What tomb have I found empty?

  • What name has God whispered to me?

  • What part of me is alive again?

Reflection for the Whole Journey

  • What moment in this journey surprised you most?

  • Where did you resist?

  • Where did you soften?

  • What did you lay down at the beginning of Lent—and what did you carry back with new hands?

  • What is still unfinished… and still holy?

  • What part of you feels like resurrection?

  • How has God met you—through breath, story, silence, or stillness?

Final Benediction

May you go forward now not as someone who has finished something—
but as someone who has been formed by the fire and the fragrance,
by the dust and the dawn.

May you remember that the God of the cross
is also the God of the garden.
That the One who weeps
is the One who calls your name in the light.

And may your life be
an altar of small faithfulness,
a table of quiet courage,
a path where embers stay warm
because you have chosen to tend them.

You have come through the wilderness.
You are not the same.
And resurrection is already at work in you.

Go in peace. Go in presence. Go in resurrection.
Amen.