First Sunday in Lent

She stumbled through the bitter night. The wind bit and tugged at her coat, far too thin for the bitter northern chill. Her baby, wrapped in a thin blanket, wailed as he sought comfort and warmth that wasn’t to be found. Across the street she saw the building, the parking lot full of shiny new cars and the sound of music floating across the wind. She crossed the street and went into the building.

Welcome.
Welcome to this place; this building, this community.
Welcome to the body of Christ.

Did you know that? You are part of the body of Christ. Maybe, you realize. You know that you’re part of this body, and you know that this body has just begun a journey.

It’s not a journey with any geographic reference; we’re not going to send everyone to the tiny republic of Togo. It’s an inward journey; the journey of Lent. This time – 40 days – reflects the same time that Jesus spent in the wilderness after his baptism.

This Lenten journey is for many things; reflection, repentance, discipline. Reflection on the sacrifice of atonement Christ made for our sins on the Cross at Calvary; repentance for the sin incurred in our lives that form the nails that held him here, and discipline, as we seek to follow Christ’s example in our own lives. This journey isn’t about giving things up; it’s about taking things on that build on the character of your faith.

This is not an easy time. Looking inward never is; in our society a sense of ‘discipline’ is only applied to athletes and then it is admired; those who seek a sort of spiritual discipline are often branded ‘flakes’ or ‘fanatics’. As we read about Jesus in the wilderness and are urged to likewise take the time to discipline ourselves we find a too-ready excuse: , “yeah, but he was Jesus; I can’t do anything for that long.”

Yes, he was Jesus. But it’s too easy to forget that he was human. Christ’s forty days in the wilderness, the temptation he faced, and the strength of character it took to sustain him were just as real as the inner strength you have access to in your own spirit. If you have not taken the time to build it, it will be weak. If you have perfected the fine art of avoiding it’s use, it will be lazy. But it is the same character.

The character of your faith as a Christian speaks as loudly – if not more loudly – as any other facet of your life about who you are. Lent is a time for the building of that faith, faith that our salvation is assured through the saving grace of Jesus Christ. It is a time to expose our own thinly-disguised self righteousness as the insult that it is to the Cross of Jesus Christ.

As she sought out someone to talk to, a well-dressed man rushed up to her through the haze; her baby’s crying echoed in the cavernous hall. “What do you want?” he asked. She heard, somewhere in her mind, the sound of a hammer driving a nail.

There is nothing we do to earn or perfect our salvation, because all the work has been accomplished. As St Peter writes, “for Christ also suffered for sins once, for all…in order to bring you to God.” In theological terms, that’s ‘vicarious atonement.’ This means that the penalty for our sin – death and the utter rejection of our existence – is paid by Jesus rather than by us. Because while we were still enemies, Christ died for us so that we may have peace with God.

Biblically, it is how we have received salvation from our hard-won condemnation. Peter is speaking to a group of people undergoing great trial and suffering for their faith, and his aim is to encourage them until the end. We are saved through baptism, Peter writes, because it unites us with the body of Christ and thus to the Resurrection.

This is a time to reflect on the blessings of our salvation from the burden of sin and its penalty of death; for as surely as the angels ministered to Jesus throughout his forty days in the wilderness Jesus himself ministers to us in our lives. Through our baptism, through the Holy Communion that we share, and in the pronunciation of the forgiveness of our sins Jesus shows that he is with us always, that we are not alone, and that he alone has dominion in our lives.

Peter tells us that in his Resurrection, Jesus has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him. All powers -- even death -- are subject to Christ Jesus who through his death on the Cross and his Resurrection opened for us the way of everlasting life.

A lot can be done in forty days. New life can begin.

‘Forty’ is a recurring theme in the Bible when it comes to talking about faith; Noah and his family survived the waters of the flood for forty days and when they receded, God established a New Covenant with Noah; that no longer would the world, though sinful, ever again be subjected to divine destruction. God, who created all things in due time, makes a covenant with more than just Noah – for the new covenant is with all living creatures. They who, through faith, have been delivered through water become partakers of the blessing of God

“I saw—“ she began, and stopped again as her baby fussed louder. The well dressed man firmly grabbed her elbow and ushered her towards the door. “We’ll give you some change, and that’s it.” She heard the hollow hammering again.

In our Lutheran tradition our baptismal prayer makes reference to this, as we pray “through the waters of the flood you delivered Noah and his family,” and we continue later in the same prayer with a reference to the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan river. The same faith that led Jesus to be baptized by John also led him into the wilderness – drove him into the wilderness – despite that spectacular assurance of divine interest: this is MY son, the beloved.

The Gospel of Mark gives the abridged version of this, really; the account of Jesus’ baptism in the Gospel of Luke is much more fleshed out – literally. What Mark relegates to two sentences Luke expands into a whole narrative. Jesus, alone in the desert, is tempted with all manner of things from material wealth to immortality to absolute authority and rejects them. But the lies he rejected are too often the same things we embrace. If nothing else, the galling truth of Lent makes us see that the lives we claim are wholly dedicated to Christ are, in fact, mere shadows of what they should be.

All those things that in our world are paramount Christ rejects. Power, money, the tabloid success that paints our lives would fill him with disgust. Those things that we grasp at to make our lives better destroy our faith; they don’t make it easier or stronger.

Faith appears where we least expect it – in hunger, in poverty, in discipline – and falters where it should be thriving. Churches that minister to the poor in India, Asia, Europe, and both North and South America are bursting despite that they have no budget, no staff, no programs. Too many multi-million dollar buildings echo for emptiness of both their hallways and all too often the souls of their people. It is easier to have faith when you have nothing else; that leaves you totally dependent upon God, rather than a perfunctory prayer before a meal, or patting oneself on the back for a dollar dropped to a beggar.

Lent is time for our self examination: of our faith, and of things that destroy it – our own sinfulness, our own selfish inclination, self-absorption, and self-importance. A time to realize that the cultural works-righteousness we aspire to is a zero-sum game; we sin more than can be redeemed by ourselves. Karma doesn’t work.

We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. Period. We have sinned against God and against Jesus Christ in thought, word, and deed; by what we have done and by what we have left undone. If sin were our currency, we would be rich. But the wages of sin is death. We cannot help but sin, and sin draws us away from God. There is nothing we do ourselves that brings us closer to God’s saving grace. The scandal of the Cross at Calvary is that through an instrument of death and agony God accomplished for us the ultimate work of love, joy, and peace. Atonement: so that we could be ‘at one’ with God.

There rests our faith; that is the ‘good news’ of Jesus Christ.

For the last time, she tried pointing at the roof of the church as the man brought her outside. “Yes, this is a church,” said the man, “now go”. And he turned and went back inside. She heard the hollow hammering again, a third time. As she crossed the street again and entered the warmth of her home, she looked at the smoke coming from the church and she spoke to her child. “Baby, what are they doing that is so important that they just sit there, even when their building is on fire?”

The salvation that we have received by grace through faith frees us from working for our own redeeming; it assures us that we are never apart from the love of God. But this in turn invites us to another kind of discipline, as modelled by our Savior – self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving, and works of love. Opening the doors of our hearts and welcoming in those whom we don’t know; and looking critically at the way we are with the rest of the body of Christ – these are the disciplines we are called to.

They are not easy. But let us lay our earthly burdens at the foot of the Cross through this season of Lent and take up his yoke and learn from him. Be gentle, and humble of heart; for we will find rest for our souls. For his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.

Let us pray. Accomplish in us, O God, the work of your salvation that we may show forth your glory in the world. By the Cross and passion of your Son, our Saviour bring us with all your saints to the joy of his Resurrection. Amen.