LINGER
A sermon for Ash Wednesday
On
Good Friday a few years ago,
I
was preaching at a little mountain chapel in western North Carolina.
I
arrived early for the service and walked into the sanctuary.
From the back of the church, you
could see that the church was decorated … for Easter.
On the altar, sat an
enormous stuffed rabbit
– the kind with
floppy ears and a cottontail –
Perched in a nest of translucent green Easter grass.
Scattered
around its plump feet were jelly beans
and peanut
butter eggs.
On the rail around the
chancel, there was more grass,
more jelly beans
and more eggs.
Tissue-paper
butterflies danced at the ends of pipe cleaners
Plunged into
pots of lilies and lilacs.
On Good
Friday, the day we remember Jesus’ death,
those dear souls
were ready for his Resurrection.
You
can’t blame them for their exuberance.
To
a person, they knew something of Good Friday –
They knew their own share of hurt
and heartache.
They knew about the
reality of loss, the pain of betrayal,
The fleeting
nature of heart-held dreams,
About the
way that life sometimes turns out other
than how we had imagined
it.
So,
we can’t blame them for rushing on ahead to the comfort of Easter –
To the assurances of an empty tomb,
to Good News told in the cadence of angels.
We can’t blame them for wanting to hear Jesus
ask with a hint of irony –
“Woman, why are
you weeping? Whom do you seek?”
and for Mary’s tears of grief to be
turned into tears of joy
when her “Rabbuoni” is
returned to her.
However
liturgically problematic,
however theologically over-eager,
however tacky
their display,
we cannot blame them
for wanting to rush
toward Easter.
It
is cliché to say that we live in a world that needs Easter –
but like so many clichés, the problem with
this one is that it is true.
Turn
on the news, read the paper, and there
are the stories of the kind of hurt
that can only be
healed by the promises of the Gospel;
the stories that – if Christ has not
been raised –
then, as St Paul said it,
then we are most to be pitied.
We can’t blame anybody
for skipping ahead.
When
our days feel like Good Friday,
Running toward Easter is not just convenient but
necessary,
Not just
rewarding but redemptive.
Which
may explain why there are Christian traditions which forego Lent altogether.
Why there are Christians - legions
of them, in fact –
that go from the Alleluias of Christmas
to the Hallelujahs of Easter
with
little in between. Just a few months past one celebration, the other.
They know despair; they experience
grief. Betrayal? It’s an all-too-familiar friend.
They live Good
Friday.
What they yearn for is Easter.
And so, they
move through the year toward its celebration,
as unencumbered by Lent and Holy
Week as possible.
But
we … we believe the opposite:
That
a deep longing for Easter is all the more reason for us to take our time in Lent
–
All the more reason for us to turn
into this season –
To journey with Jesus – not
away from grief, not away from pain, but into it.
It’s because we grow weary of darkness
that we follow behind
the One who entered it so fully.
It’s because we know temptation
That we head into the
desert with Jesus.
It’s because we know something of guilt
and regret
That we keep close to
the One who – even from the cross – offered forgiveness.
It’s precisely because we need Easter so
badly that we must linger in Lent.
It is because we know that
God’s mercy will triumph over every transgression,
That we must
ready ourselves to receive it.
It is because we know
that God’s laughter will again dance throughout creation,
That we must
tune our hearts to hear it.
It is because the
feast of victory will be extravagant
that we need
to grow hungrier before we find our place at the table.
And
Lent does that –
Before
the feast comes the fast.
Before any song of joy comes a
season of silence.
Before Easter praise
comes pleading prayer.
Before
absolution comes confession;
Before
celebration comes contrition, and
Today,
before any sign of mercy comes a sign of mortality.
Ashes.
Dust. Reminders of the beginning.
Reminders
of our end.
Remember
that you are dust,
and to dust, you
shall return!
Ashes.
Dust. In the shape of the cross.
A
symbol that our end will be our beginning.
So come and receive on your brow the
mark of him who died,
Not to wear it with
pride. But as an invitation to take our time,
to draw
closer to Jesus who quite literally is dying to love you.
Celebration will
wait.
There will be a time for bunnies and
butterflies, for baskets and bonnets. There will be a day when we shall find a
tomb empty
and
a Savior risen.
And when that day comes, our joy will be
complete.
But
for now, let us linger awhile in Lent. Amen.
