Possibly my fascination with Scandinavian languages is showing again, but I've got another Swedish word, this week; resfeber.
It's the restlessness, the anticipation - and the anxiety - that someone feels before beginning a journey. It's that excited feeling in your heart that keeps you from sleeping the night before you go somewhere new (or somewhere old), whether it's a positive excited feeling, or a negative one.
Do you think that Jesus felt resfeber, when he was about to begin the journey of his ministry, which he knew would end on the cross? Did he feel it as he drew ever closer to that end, and both anticipate and wish it would never come? Do you think he looked at the journey ahead of him, knowing what it would mean for humanity, and felt restless as it began?
Lent begins next week; Ash Wednesday is only a couple days away. And just as Jesus knew how it would end, with him dying on the cross and then rising again, we know that it will end with Easter, and our honoring both of his sacrifice and his resurgence - and the salvation that it brought us.
So as we prepare for Lent, as we decide whether we want to give up something - or take something on, as I usually do - let yourselves feel that anticipation. Let yourselves feel the anxiety that is inevitable, even knowing how the journey ends.
And let us remember that in some ways, the journey is, itself, the end; the destination...only ashes.
