Lent for All of Us

 Sunday was the first Sunday of Lent.  Lent is not something that you will find in the bible.  There is no Lenten observance in the bible.  It was not and is not part of the Jewish religion, so it was not something that Jesus observed or even the first Christians who were all Jews. It is one of the seasons in the church year like Advent or Pentecost or Christmas or Easter.  Advent and Lent are similar in that they are times of preparation.  Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas and in the same way Lent is preparation for Easter. 

Lent began last Wednesday, and we marked it with the Ash Wednesday observances.  If you were at the Ash Wednesday service here or other places you would have received a cross in ashes on your forehead.  The ashes were produced by burning the palm crosses from last Easter. 

When the priest marks you with the cross, he or she states, ‘remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.’  It is a reminder that we are mortal and our time on earth is limited.  We must consider how we use that time.  We know that we do not always live the life God intends for us.  That is one way of looking at sin.  We sin when we separate ourselves from God and do not live God intends us to live. 

So, we are now in a time of preparation for Easter.   We have forty days in total to reflect on our lives, to repent those things that keep us from being in relationship with God.  We do this in two ways.  First we acknowledge that we have done things we should not have done and commit to not do them.  Second, we acknowledge those things we have not done that we should have done and commit to doing them.  We know that being human and imperfect we will not succeed all the time but we have the intention of making the effort to do just that.  Often in Lent we focus on giving up something as a sacrifice.  We will forego something that we desire as a way of following God.  We can give up a favourite food or some activity we enjoy as a symbol of our need to change our lives.  You could call this the way of negation.  You can also take the way of affirmation by doing something that you have not been doing previously.  This could be contributing time, energy, and financial resources assist those in need. 

Lent is, in its essence, a Christian practice.  However, it can be helpful for non-Christians.  Here is a quote from a Christian source, Anne Germond, the acting Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, which can be applied to everyone’s life in this time:

But what if we thought of Lent as a God-given time of disruption the normal flow of our lives, inviting us to re-examine them, laying bare and shining the spotlight on all that is wrong – the pathological unease or “disease” in our world?  In the context of global warming, greed, violence abroad and at home, and of our inability to seek peace with our neighbours…

 

I found the following on the internet which addresses both ways – giving up things i.e. fasting and doing something new i.e. feasting or feeding our souls:

Fast from fear; Feast on Faith
Fast from despair; Feed on hope.
Fast from depressing news; Feed on prayer.
Fast from discontent; Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger and worry; Feed on patience.
Fast from negative thinking; Feast on positive thinking.
Fast from bitterness; Feed on love and forgiveness.
Fast from words that wound; Feast on words that heal.
Fast from gravity; Feast on joy and humour.

May we all find ways to fast and feast in this season of Lent. 

A World Out of Joint

A week before Christmas I was visiting a parishioner.  In the process I slipped on some ice and fell and dislocated my shoulder.  There is no good time for that to happen by for a priest or pastor but Christmas time is one of the least convenient times to be inconvenienced in this manner.  I must give accolades to the medical system which receives less than stellar reviews at times as well as others involved.  The assistance of the tow truck driver (yes I also got stuck in the parishioner’s laneway), the ambulance personnel, the emergency staff at Strathroy Hospital and the Clinic at St. Joe’s in London all did a great job.   

Well I did manage to get through all the Christmas activities without it being an insurmountable task.  To say that I was experiencing the troubles of Job would be an outrageous exaggeration.  However, I found that many of the things which I did naturally and took for granted were no longer easy for me to do.  Of course it would have to by my right shoulder which made it all the more difficult being right handed.  Being the Christmas season assisted me in reflecting on my situation and how there was a relationship between having my arm out of joint and the season we were celebrating.  Actually this was pointed out to me by my wife and I was skeptical when she first mentioned it but on reflection realized the truth of what she was saying. 

You may be wondering what could be the relationship between a shoulder dislocation and Christmas.  Well I believe that Christmas was necessary because the world was out of joint.  God had created the world and all that was in it and declared it good.  However, it didn’t take too long until things were not going the way they were intended to go.  The world was out of joint.  The way the world was working was like dealing with a dislocated shoulder.  You can no longer do things the way you naturally would do them.  Things no longer worked that way so you had to find other ways to do them which are unnatural, more difficult and awkward. 

For the world, the Old Covenant was not working.  God gave the covenant with the law and people could not live up to it.  God’s intention was not being fulfilled by His people.  A new way was needed.  God decided that what was required was for God to become one of us – still fully divine but also fully human.  God was born as a small helpless baby in a stable in Bethlehem.  Well you know the rest of the story which we have just finished reliving for the 2010^th time.

We are now in the in-between time of the new covenant in which God’s Kingdom has not yet come to fruition.  We Christians are still in this world as a covenantal people.  The world still is not working as God intended just as my shoulder is still feeling the after effects of that dislocation.   Both those things will happen in God’s good time.  My shoulder will hopefully be back to normal before too long.  I have no doubt that it will take longer for the world to come fully to the state where it is working as God intended it.  However, I have faith that it will one day – in God’s time.