Lent

by Pastor Lenae Rasmussen

Like Advent, Lent is a season of repentance and anticipation. However, the Christmas shopping and baking that somehow sneak into Advent as we prepare for the birth of our Lord are starkly absent in Lent. After we supposedly eat up the fat and meat in the house on Shrove Tuesday, we’re “supposedD to lay off all the goodies until Easter. Admittedly, marshmallow eggs and chocolate bunnies have a way of slipping into our homes before Holy Week, but for the most part, there is a noticeably different aura to Lent. We hold off on celebrating Easter and the Resurrection of Our Lord until we have made our journey through five weeks of Lent, and Holy Week.

Now we are getting to the heart of the matter regarding Lent: Holy Week includes Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, the day that Jesus died for our sins. The Crucifixion of Our Lord for our salvation is indeed bittersweet. Theologically, it is the “joyful day” when the Happy Exchange takes place.  It is “the day” of our atonement and reconciliation to God (2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13). 

Yet Jesus’ grisly death outside the city gate is not the kind of thing most people like to dwell on. We much prefer the while lilies and daffodils of Easter to the mutilated, dead body of our Lord hanging on the Tree. In fact, the offense of the cross made Paul’s preaching of Christ crucified utterly foolish to both the Jews who demanded signs, and the Greeks who sought wisdom. But here—on the cross—the Good News is hidden in the sign of the opposite. “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Cor 1:21).  Here is the rub...the cross and the crucified Christ are not wise by worldly standards. In fact, Jesus’ whole walk to Jerusalem after His Transfigur ation was quite foolish by human standards: “If He had just stayed away from that town, the Temple, and the Sanhedrin, Pilate couldn’t have done anything to Him!”

Now, we clearly see that God’s ways are not our ways, and His foolishness is wiser than anything we can dream up. None of us were much to write home about, Paul says, until God called us; we were neither rich nor noble nor powerful, “but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption; therefore, as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord’.” (1 Cor 1:27-3 1).

In light of Christ’s resurrection, His preaching and healing in Galilee start to pale. It was wonderful for the blind, lame, deaf, dumb, leprous, hemorrhaging and otherwise diseased and crippled people who came to Jesus to be restored to health, but that wasn’t the point of God’s incarnation. The miracle of Jesus’ birth and life in the Gospel of Mark is not about the super-duper things He did—the colossus marching across Galilee and walking on water—the miracle is Jesus’ death and resurrection to make you and me believe that we are sinners—big sinners—but God forgives our sins for His Name’s sake.

Now, looking backwards, in faith we can “see” and “know” what Jesus’ public ministry and His walk to Jerusalem to hang on a cross outside the city gates is all about: the kingdom of God is at hand; it is right before you; believe the Good News that you are a sinner and your sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake; turn away from striving to be like God. Believe the Good News and be reconciled to your Father in Heaven. You, who once had nothing, now have everything in Christ. Atonement is yours by faith alone in Christ alone, the Living Word and the Good News.

Now, in cleansed in Christ’s gift of faith in His Gospel of the Forgiveness of Sins, we are truly prepared to enter the season of Lent assured that “I am Christ’s, and He is mine.” In faith, we poor sinners are at last set free to confess our sins and repent. In Christ, we can actually turn to God instead of our self-justifying devices because He does it for us. In Christ,He gives us faith to believe the Good News announced to us in the absolution in Christ’s stead: “I forgive you all your sins. Go in peace.”  Now, believe it!