And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.

Sometimes Lent feels like a time when I as a child played with an onion and discovered that it had layers and layers of skin. I kept peeling away, hoping to find something really captivating at the core only to find a big emptiness, then taking the messy residue up and putting it in the garbage - after which I noticed a distinct odor on my hands and my eyes were tearing up. So I wiped the tears away with both fingers and then really came the hurt and the deluge. A Lent like that does not have layers and layers of meaning, only layers and layers of self questioning like: "How could you be so stupid?"

Maybe it's not such a bad thing to realize that at long last I know for sure that I don't know. It's a great lesson in humility and feels so much more honest than an empty "mea culpa" for things I'm supposed to be humiliated about but for which I feel next to nothing.

The depth of God's incarnation in the Jesus walk is a continuous source of marvelous life breathing illuminations even at age 70. There is so much about Jesus that I am still discovering or more accurately which is blasting me with mystery and surprise and is finally getting through. Maybe with age I am less guarded and less inclined to protect matters pertaining to the ego and reputation? So He (She or It) is really getting through.

Isn't it interesting? Just when I feel I am preaching some of my best sermons, I realize that I am well beyond the time of full-time service. There is so much yet to learn, so many new great books to read, so much excitement on the progressive Lutheran theological frontier and so little time left.

I am grateful to have made it this far and to have made it with my life-companion, Louise. I can't imagine growing older with anyone else in the whole wide world. Or for that matter, anyone putting up with me this long. And like so many of you, we are so grateful to have met such an interesting companion on our own unique road to Emmaus - when our hearts jump for joy as His words pump fresh oxygen into our valley of dry bones. "O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord."

It never grows old. It truly is the "Greatest Story Ever Told." Thank you, dear colleagues, for the joy we have shared over the years in this great timeless Gospel of the Lord.