Ash Wednesday 2013

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who we walk with along our Lenten journey.

This Lent during our Wednesday Lenten services we will be a part of a round robin again, this time looking at one of the ways in which we journey through lent, music. Each of the 5 weeks a different hymn will be used and talked about as part of this journey. Today though I want to simply talk about the Lenten Journey. The Lenten journey is different than the other journeys of the church year. We often give ourselves resolutions and disciplines that often attempt to model themselves after Christ’s journey during this season.

           

I am a big Monty Python fan and one of my favorites of theirs is Monty Python and the Holy Grail. One scene in that movie involves a group of monks parading through town, slowly chanting and smashing themselves in the heads with wooden boards. In the context of Monty Python it seems humorous. But, now in the context of Lent, it is often a scene that we envision as a form of penitence during Lent. During the Middle Ages, many people, mainly monks, decided that during their lives and especially Lent, they needed to put themselves into Christ’s life as much as possible, and so, since they saw Christ suffering they decided they also needed to suffer. It is a form of Lenten discipline that goes in the wrong direction from what I believe is the primary purpose of Lent.

            Lent is a journey where we do consider the suffering in our lives and the suffering that Christ went through. But, it is not the time to add extreme sufferings, giving up candy or TV or the like is fine. Lent is a journey, but it is merely part of the whole journey of the Church year, which itself mimics the journey of life.

            We begin our journey in advent as we prepare for Jesus coming to us, waiting for Jesus’ light to fill the darkness of this world. In Christmas we celebrate that Christ has in fact come to us, and in Epiphany is manifest to the whole world. Then we journey through Lent which we will get to in a moment, followed by Easter where we give praise that Christ was resurrected, and finally Pentecost where we see that because of all that God has done in Christ we are the church, the Body of Christ for the world.

            The Lenten Journey is merely part of the whole journey. But, it is the central part of the journey. It is in Lent that we ponder the reason why Christ came to us. And it was not to simply be a teacher, his teachings were grand, but they do not save us. The journey of Lent is the journey towards the cross. It is a journey where we do not need to add additional mourning and suffering upon ourselves, but on this journey we are made well aware of all the bumps and blocks in our life.

            We think of the financial suffering we often undergo, the suffering of not being able to put enough food upon our tables, the suffering of not being able to provide clothing for your children, the suffering of seeing our family and friends in pain.

            And as it is Lent, we cannot journey without considering the suffering of death. Whether it be our elders who pass away quietly in their sleep or those who are torn from us much, much to soon.

            On this Lenten journey we cannot ignore that death is such a devastating part of the human condition. But, in Lent we consider also that the journey we make towards death has already been walked by our Lord Jesus. The Lenten journey is not really ours, but Christ’s, we simply walk alongside.

            We will walk to Mary and Martha’s, we will walk to the Gates of Jerusalem surrounded by waving palm branches, we will walk the streets of Jerusalem to the Temple and then the Upper Room, we will walk to the Garden of Gethsemane. We will walk to Pilate and Herod’s headquarters, and then walk upon the Via Dolorosa, the way of sorrows which leads to Golgotha, the place of the cross.

            We will walk with Mary, and Martha and John, as they watch Jesus in his last moments. And we will walk home, our hearts burdened.

            But, that’s not the end of the journey. The Lenten Journey does not stop there. The Lenten Journey is yes a journey towards death, but it is more so a journey towards life.

            We often walk through the darkness of sin and death, but we always walk towards the Easter Promise of Resurrection.

            This evening as we leave in silence, the cross marked upon our foreheads, we begin the walk towards death, which leads to life.