Linger - A Sermon for Ash Wednesday

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.