Justice and hope. Can these two words really go together? As justice-seekers whose ears are attuned to the voices of marginalized people, where is our hope when the poor are trampled underfoot and it seems that the powerful take the day every time? Where is our hope when even our churches too often turn their faces away?

We have hope because we are not saving the world, Christ is.

We have hope because we get to participate in this heavenly restoration and reconciliation of all things, and though we groan and labour along with creation, we know the ending of the story already.

There will be freedom for the prisoners.

There will be recovery of sight for the blind.

The oppressed will be set free.

Good news will be proclaimed to the poor.

And so we work and pray and advocate, entrusting our faithful mustard seeds of love for neighbours to a faithful God.

As we walk with Christ toward the cross this Lent, we walk with our marginalized neighbours, knowing with them that after the cross comes the empty tomb.