There is something unsettling about shadows.

When I was growing up, our home on Oakland Avenue in south Minneapolis had a streetlight in front of it.  The light would shine directly into my bedroom.  And I remember sometimes waking up in the middle of the night, to see shadowy shapes on my wall. It might have been the curtains moving because the window was open…or branches outside moving in the breeze.  Or maybe it was objects in my room.  Now, during the daytime, those shapes were simply a chair, or a jacket, or maybe a lamp. But at night, in the dark, shadowed on the wall, they felt different. Larger. Stranger. And to an 8-year old?  Maybe a little threatening. Nothing had changed in my room…it was just a matter of the way the light, and the shadow, hit the wall.

Some days, I think the world still feels this way.

We live in a world where shadows seem to stretch across everything. There is division and anger in our communities. Violence and fear in the headlines. Strain in relationships. Exhaustion in our hearts. 

At times, it feels like the light has grown dim and the shadows have grown long.

The season of Lent begins by asking us to do something that can feel uncomfortable. It invites us not to run from the shadows, but to name them. To tell the truth. To admit that they are real, both around us and within us.

Lent is a season to be honest about the shadowed places of life, trusting that God meets us there with presence and mercy, not judgment.  

And the Apostle Paul begins with that honesty in Romans. He doesn’t soften it. He doesn’t avoid it.

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he writes.

That is the shadow.

Not just out there. In here.  We all sin.  We all fall short.  

It is easy to talk about the world’s brokenness. It is harder to talk about the brokenness in our own hearts. 

• The impatience. 
• The resentment. 
• The fear. 
• The ways we turn inward. 
• The ways we choose comfort over courage, silence over compassion, distance over love.

Lent begins by inviting us to name the shadow, not so we feel shame, but so we can tell the truth.

And truth, even when it is hard, is always the first step toward healing.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples something they do not want to hear. He tells them that he must suffer. He tells them that he will be rejected; that he will be killed. And that the road ahead will not be easy.

Peter hears this and immediately tries to stop him: “God forbid it, Lord. This must never happen to you.”

Peter does what we often do. He tries to push the shadow away. He wants a Messiah who brings strength, victory, and certainty. He wants light without darkness. He wants glory without suffering.

But Jesus will not avoid the shadow.

Instead, he turns to Peter and says something that sounds pretty harsh: “Get behind me, Satan. You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

This is a hard moment. But Jesus is not rejecting Peter. He is reminding him that the path of love is not always easy. That redemption passes through the shadow, not around it.

And then he says something that feels just as challenging for us today.

Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Lent begins by telling the truth about the shadow. The truth about sin. About suffering. And about the cost of love.

But it does not end there.

Because in Romans, Paul does not stop with “all have sinned.” He continues: “They are now justified…made right…made whole…by God’s grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

You see, the shadow is real. But so is grace.

Martin Luther once wrote, “We are at the same time righteous and sinners.” In Latin, the phrase is “simul justus et peccator.” That simple phrase holds an incredible truth. The shadow does not define us. No, we are defined by grace, even as we struggle…even as we fall short…even as we carry brokenness.

God does not wait for us to step fully into the light before loving us. God meets us right where we are.

In the shadow.

I remember once visiting someone in the hospital late at night. The room was dim. Machines were humming quietly. The person I was visiting was afraid. Not just of what might happen medically, but of the uncertainty, the vulnerability, the feeling of being out of control.  (Have you ever felt out of control?)

We sat there in the quiet and talked. And at one point, they said something that has stayed with me.

“I know God is with me. But I wish it didn’t all feel so dark.”

That is an honest prayer. And it is a prayer many of us are carrying right now.

There are shadows in the world that feel heavy. The division in our culture. The anger that seems to rise so quickly. The uncertainty that leaves people feeling anxious or afraid. There is a sense that something is fraying in our common life together.

We feel it. We carry it. And sometimes it follows us into our homes, our conversations, even into our own hearts.

Lent gives us space to name that honestly.  But Lent also reminds us that we are not walking alone.

You see, God does not promise that we will never encounter shadows. God promises to walk through them with us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and theologian who lived in Germany during a time of deep national darkness, once wrote, “Only the suffering God can help.” He understood something profound. In Jesus, God does not stand at a distance from the shadow. God enters into it. God experiences it. God suffers within it, alongside us.

When Jesus speaks in Matthew about his coming suffering, he is not speaking theoretically. He is speaking of a path he will actually walk…things he will experience.  A path that will lead him to the cross.

And yet, the cross itself is not the end of the story. The shadow is not the end of the story. The cross leads to resurrection. Which is why Lent begins with honesty but always moves towards hope.

Years ago, I was on a summer trip with the youth group from the congregation I was serving. We were in Kentucky, working on a Habitat for Humanity site. On our day off, we drove over to visit Mammoth Cave National Park. We had signed up for a group tour—28 of us.  We hiked down into the cave and into the depths, which were all lit by lanterns.  At one point in the deepest, quietest part of the tour, the park ranger did something unexpected. He asked everyone to stand still. Then with the flick of a remote control, he turned off all the lights.

If you’ve never been in a cave that deep; it is hard to describe the darkness. It is not like nighttime. It is not like a room with the lights off. It is absolute. You cannot see your hand in front of your face. You lose your sense of space. You begin to feel disoriented. Some in our group laughed nervously. Some got very quiet. A few started to feel anxious.  

The ranger kept the lights off…for what was probably just a moment, but for what seemed like a really long time.  And in that darkness, we noticed something. Even though we could not see each other, we could tell were not alone. We could hear breathing. We could hear someone shift their weight. Someone in the group whispered, “I’m right here.”

And then something beautiful happened. People reached out. A hand found another hand. Arms linked. No one could see the path out, but they could feel each other.

When the ranger finally turned the lights back on, the cave had not changed. The narrow passages were still narrow. The ceiling was still low. But the group had changed. 28 of us were standing there, all holding hands.  We were no longer just individuals navigating darkness. We were a community that had walked through it together.

That night, at our group devotions, we talked about our experience, and I remember an 11^th grader named Stephanie, who said, “The darkness wasn’t what scared me most. It was the thought of being alone in it.”

That is true far beyond caves.

Fear grows in isolation. Shadows lengthen when we try to face them by ourselves. But something shifts when another voice says, “I’m here.” When a hand reaches out. When we walk side by side.

The darkness may still be real. But it loses its power when we do not face it alone.

That is the promise of Lent.

Not that the shadow disappears overnight. But that Christ walks into it with us.  And that changes everything.

Our first week of Lent is about naming the shadow, naming the brokenness in the world, and naming the brokenness in ourselves. Naming the fears, the worries, the places where we fall short.  But not with shame.  With honesty.

Because the moment we name the shadow, we take away its power, and we make space for grace.

Paul reminds us that we are justified by grace, as a gift.  It is not earned. It is not achieved. It is given.

Jesus reminds us that following him means walking a path that includes sacrifice, honesty, and trust.

This week, I invite you to take a few quiet moments to ask yourself a simple question.

Ask yourself, where do I see the shadow right now?

• In the world.
• In my relationships.
• In my own heart.

And then, in that same moment, ask another question:  Where in that shadow, is God meeting me?  Because the promise of Lent is that God is present with us, within the shadow.

This is where the Lenten journey begins. With truth. With honesty. With the courage to name what is real.  And with the quiet, steady hope that the light is already on its way.

Amen.