Psalm 31:9–16; Lamentations 3:55–66; Mark 10:32–34
Saturday, March 28
I posted an overview of Union Gospel Mission’s 2026 Lent Devotional February 4 and am including several pieces during this season.
This week’s entry is by Matthew Johnson, Street Outreach Priest in Vancouver with the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster.
Our journey this Lent began with these words, as ashes were marked on our foreheads: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
On this 34th day of Lent, as Jesus walks toward Jerusalem, what are you walking towards?
Over time, this life and this Jesus will call us in many directions, quite apart from Jerusalem.
Some of these directions attract us.
A deepening friendship or intimate relationship. Studies or work or a vocation we long to pursue. Art or writing or a craft or music or other activities through which our souls find expression. A coming wedding or an impending birth.
Some of these directions we’d rather not approach.
A relationship that’s not working out. Searching for employment at a time of few jobs. A housing search, amid limited vacancies and astronomical rents. An impending medical procedure. Family problems requiring our attention.
Whatever direction our lives may be directed, there is a place for us too, with the other disciples on that road to Jerusalem. With them, today we too hear about what lays heavy on Jesus’s heart. That He will be mocked, spat upon, flogged and killed.
There will be no skipping forward to a ‘Happy Easter.’ Not for Jesus. And not for His followers, ourselves included. It is only in arriving in Jerusalem, and through the liturgies of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, that we can bear witness to all these things, as unwelcome and truly terrifying as they are.
Matthew Johnson befriends people near St. James Church in the Downtown Eastside.
Then, and only then, and not before, will we be free to enter the as-yet unknown hope to which Jesus will, in time, also call us.
But it is only at Jerusalem that we will come to understand anew, again this Lent, the meaning of those ashes, and those words, and that mortality we share with our Saviour.
“Remember you are dust. . . .”
God of wisdom, may the light of the eternal Word, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, guide us to Your glory. Amen.
The full UGM 2026 Lent Devotional can be read here.