Church
Sun, Mar 5, 2017 St. Peter’s
lectionary
- serpent in garden, 2 trees, origin of sin
- Romans: “As sin came into the world …” one man and death
- Paul’s explanation is about how Christ is the answer, not how it all started
- Matthew’s temptation … Angels came and waited on him
Invitation to “Holy Lent”
Ash Wednesday
On Ash Wed. a remarkable passage appears in the liturgy of the church. They are words that invite us as a people to enter into the life of Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection by means of penitence, forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration.
Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting.
It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith."
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.
We are invited to meditate on these truths as we observe a Holy Lent.
Lent about penitence and reconciliation as preparation for celebrating the Passion and Resurrection.
I have often wondered at why we as a church don’t hear from the Passion & Resurrection of Jesus in as much as it is the core and essential truth of our faith. We read it on only 1 Sunday in the year, the Sunday before Easter.
I learned this past week that perhaps the early church practiced exactly that. It is why the Orthodox even to this day experience Wed. & Fri. as a little memorial of the Passion.
In addition, every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year is dedicated in part to the commemoration of the Passion.Wikipedia
We are left with these 40 days of Lent to remind us of the essential place the death and Resurrection has in our life as Christians.
“Why Christians need to observe Lent”
I read an article about why the fast of Lent is so important to Christians. blog. In it the author observes that often by taking a Sabbath from something we can make it stronger. He uses several sports metaphors and stories to illustrate.
The essay opened:
“Why do Christians need to fast during Lent? Because most of us have just about everything we could ever need. We are basically want for nothing, and that situation is toxic to the human soul. We have lost track of what it means to be human. Observing Lent can help us get it back.”
I ask my students in Relg 101 to think of paradoxes in their lives & experience – “paradox” as something that at least on the surface is self-contradictory. Like: Anyone who wants to save his life must first lose it.
Of course that is Jesus speaking and he had many other teachings like it. Quite a number of the students gave the example of how often when they are looking for something they had lost or couldn’t find, that when they stopped searching for it it would appear. One must lose one’s life to save it. Parado it turns out is central to all religious language – of all kinds.
With the author of the article, it seems that we are a people who have far more than we need. What we lack – Shalom, Peace in our hearts, that passes understanding, – we can only achieve by letting go of what we grasp and hold onto. What we fear losing. These 40 days are a time to remind ourselves of how much we have clutched on to but must let go of if we are to claim our place in the Passion & Resurrection of the Lord.
There may be no end in sight:
I listened to a song by Jon Swift that evoked for me the paradox by which we can only move forward by enduring an ending first. jon-swift The ending of the song goes:
…There may be no end the way that I see it,
but it seems I need to end to begin
Now I’m standing, watching the tolling bells
hoping to see where I belong.
And though I live among the best folks that I know,
somehow, something still seems wrong.
There may be no end the way that I see it,
but it seems I need to end to begin
The song writer hears and sees in a vision the end of a life. He lives with the best folks there is – but he can’t see a way to let go. But he know that to begin again, he must 1st come to an end.
Lent it would seem is about “Letting Go”
Long ago I was moved by a little book with the title: Love is letting go of fear
The inspiration behind the book is 1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” (NRSV) Or as the Message version of it says:
MSG God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear.
Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
A basic lesson we must learn is that when we hold on to what we fear losing there is no room for **love **.
Lent is about identifying what we are afraid to let go of – discernment– followed by accepting the grace and love which will enter into the emptiness – repentance.
So much in my life I have held so tightly – deathly afraid of letting go. Smoking cigarettes was like that. Relations have been like that. My father’s death was like that. It was so sudden that there was no time to discern his hold and importance for me. I could let go only 2 months later when I heard him speak to me in a vision, “I’m all right. I’m all right.”
Then I found peace in his death.Then I could make room for peace. Then, I could make room for love as I had not known before. Only then did I know how much I had loved him and how to accept myself because was so much like him.
Some of us may hold on to a vision of the past – a nostalgia. It may have been god in many ways – but there are no do-overs in life. As one person put it (S. K.) “we understand our lives looking backward but we have to live our lives going forward.” Nostalgia is useful not for being great again. But for knowing what to repent of – what fear to let go of – so that we may live the new life of the Passion & Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.
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