Welcome back to We Wonder: Lent.

We have made it to the fifth week of Lent. It is a long season, and I wonder if we are getting tired? Still, the road to Jerusalem is stretching out in front of us, and Holy Week is coming, so we will continue to walk with Jesus, step by step, to his journey’s end.

As we do, we will trace the final stretch of that road as it was recorded by Matthew. Even if our feet are tired and our spirits have grown weary, we will keep listening to Jesus’s words and trying to imagine that we are there with him. And we will do our best to pay attention, each day, to what we see, and hear, and feel. Even as the season of Lent stretches on, we still need to meet and listen for God, in all that is happening to us. I wonder what we will notice, as we listen to the same words over and over, all week long? I wonder what we will have to say to God?

I hope that you can listen every day this week, and let these words take deep root in your heart. I hope that you can find a way to keep traveling with Jesus, little by little, as we make our way to the end of Lent.

This week’s reading is from the gospel of Matthew, chapter 20, verses 17 through 28. Jesus and his friends are coming close to Jerusalem: they are traveling up, from the low country around Jericho, along the road that climbs to the city. As they do, he reminds them what is waiting for him at the end of the journey. I wonder, though, if the disciples are able to really hear what he is saying, or to understand.