Lent

Lent starts this Wednesday (Ash Wednesday), Feb 17. Lent is a time where we focus on the imitation of Christ's suffering and passion on the cross.

It becomes clear as we're reading the gospels that Jesus is not a superhero content with gallantly meeting the needs of people. Christ's life on earth was about being obedient to the Father. The Father is surely concerned with the plight of people who are poor, imprisoned, orphaned, undocumented, widowed, addicted, depressed, and ultimately poor in spirit; and I'm convinced that it is impossible to follow God without caring for the needs of others. Yet Jesus did not come to earth to start a non-profit. Jesus came to earth to show us obedience to God. In Jesus's life we see the love of the Father for humanity revealed to us by sending Jesus, his son, to die on the cross.
The cross is a struggle for every disciple to understand. It may even be true to say that the cross was a bit of a struggle for Jesus to understand. Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? If God is all-powerful than there should be no need for God to jump through hoops to save God's people. I can't reason it out any other way than to say that God chose to have Jesus die on the cross out of love for humanity. For the Jews living in Rome, a picture of God's Son dying on the cross was an image that could lead them to begin to understand the mystery of God's love for people. In our response of faith to the faithfulness of the Son we are saved.

The image of the cross is something that doesn't necessarily translate to our culture today. We have no capital punishment that quite equates and we've lost an understanding of atoning sacrifices. In spite of all that we come this week to the season of Lent. The 40 days leading up to Holy Week where Jesus suffers on the cross.

Lent then is our chance to echo St. Paul's words to the church in Philippi:

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

So in this time we fast from something in attempts to be reminded of God's sacrifice. This is a time where we as the church can live with the disciples in the second half of the gospels as we seek to understand what it means that Christ would die. In advent, we anticipate the joy that comes with God's coming. We can see why that is exciting. Lent is a little more somber. We join with the disciples not really getting it. It is a time where we seek to understand. It is a time when we walk on the road to Emmaus and find ourselves surprised. Our eyes are opened, and we find our hearts burning within us. Christ is risen! The scriptures are opened to us! Now I get it! I didn't see this coming! But hallelujah Christ is risen! The mystery is being revealed!