We are into Lent, that
wonderful season of repentance and meditation; those forty days that precede
Easter every year. This can be a very
useful time for all of us. The intent is
to imitate the journey of Jesus into the wilderness where he was tempted by the
devil for all of his time there. We are
offered an opportunity to examine our lives, think about how we live them and
think about how we might live them differently.
The process can bring us to a much better place than when we began.
Lent begins for
me with Shrove Tuesday, when we eat sometimes terrible pancakes usually
provided by our youth groups, with some kind of charity in mind. But the main event at the beginning of Lent
is Ash Wednesday, the day that we present ourselves at the altar of God and
receive ashes on our foreheads, and listen to the solemn words: Remember
that you are dust, and to dust you will return. This follows a liturgy of confession and
repentance that brings us all together as a people who are dedicated to the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that we
all mean it when we offer our confession and receive the absolution, but it
doesn’t take us very long before we begin again to deviate from what we have so
solemnly promised. That is not to
suggest that it is impossible, but merely to offer the observation that we are
all human and that we continue in our sin daily.
I’ve always
been impressed with Jesus’ trip into the desert and the way that he responded
to the devil when he tempted him. All of
the temptations were things that Jesus needed very much. First, was his hunger and the temptation to
turn the stones into bread. Jesus said
to the devil, that one doesn’t live by bread alone. That almost seems curious when you reflect on
the hunger that life in the desert can create; but Jesus resisted this because
of his dedication to the word of God, and his need to keep his focus on his
mission. Secondly, the devil offered to
Jesus all of the cities of the world, if only he would worship the devil. Jesus resisted this by telling the devil that
It
is written worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him, again, being
in charge of all of the cities of the world is something that was deeply a part
of Jesus’ hope, indeed, it has been the goal of the church since it was
created. But having this given to him
with the price of devil worship wasn’t in the mix. It involved Jesus renouncing the worship of
God that was the very essence of his being.
Thirdly, the devil took Jesus to Jerusalem, put him on the pinnacle of
the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down so
that angels will rescue you so that you will not dash your foot against a
stone.” Jesus resisted this by simply
saying do not put the Lord your God to the test. At the end of all of this,
the scripture says that the devil ended his temptations and departed from Jesus
until an opportune time.
This last
temptation is certainly a preview of the crucifixion. Nicholas Kazantzakis echoes this in his
magnificent book The Last Temptation of
Christ when he has Jesus come down from the cross in the middle of his
crucifixion, being tempted by a small girl, who is really the devil who has
returned at what he believes to be “an opportune time”. In this fantasy, Jesus goes
on to live in Bethany with Mary, whom he marries and has several children.
After a long time, the dream is over; Jesus
wakes up, is back on the cross and the crucifixion continues. One can almost applaud Kazantzakis’ beautiful
fantasy ending of a story that we know so very well; that Jesus dies on the
cross and is buried in a tomb. What this
book tells us is that Jesus’ resurrection is not possible without his death,
and that Jesus’ death is there for all of us to understand that with his death
and resurrection, we will also rise from our graves into the loving arms of our
Lord God. That is what this Lenten
journey is all about; to give us some perspective on this incredible story.
Do we really
believe in the Resurrection? We’ve never
seen one. I can tell you that I have
stood beside caskets many times at funerals when I wished that I could wave my
hands and do a resurrection. The grief
that we all suffer at those times is palpable.
I would have loved to be able to mitigate that horrible grief with a
happy ending right there. What we all
need to remember is that we all have a happy ending. Our resurrections are secure, no matter what
else we might think, we will be safe in the arms of our God after our deaths,
whether we believe that or not. I know, I’m asking you to grasp the most
incredible mystery that this world offers.
What about life after death? What
happens to us when we die? No matter
what it is that we wish for our enemies, our God is full of grace and
merciful. That is the end of the
story. We are loved with an intensity
that we can’t even begin to imagine. It
is the kind of Love that God wishes for all of us to have for each other. If we were somehow able to do that, all of
the wars would cease and we would return this world to the paradise of
Eden. Isn’t that what we all have in
mind? There is a project that will
occupy us for all of this Lent. Work on
it.
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