Sunday, February 26, 2023
/The First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11
The Rev. Clint Brown
It is well said that we can’t have Easter without first having the Cross. If not well-known enough to be a proverb, it certainly could be. We all know that there is no gain without pain; that we can’t run a victory lap without first having won the race; and we Christians know that, when it comes to our salvation, we should never accept its benefits without first weighing its cost. It is the knowledge of who we are – sinful, mortal, frail – that Lent confronts us with; forty days to confront squarely our need for God and why it is that Easter represents the momentous thing it does. This is why I want to encourage you to be especially intentional this Lent about your Lenten practices. It is not a question of should you do something different. The question to be decided is what should you do different? What can you do to shift your focus and let more of your attention land on Godly things rather than the things that otherwise preoccupy you.
It is all too easy, you see, to make the mistake of the distressed disciple who came to his teacher begging him for help. “Do you really want a cure?” the teacher asked. “Well, of course I do,” the disciple relied. “Otherwise, would I have bothered to come to you?” “Oh, yes,” the teacher replied. “Most people do.” And the disciple asked, incredulously, “Well what for then?” And the teacher answered, “Well, not for the cure. That’s too painful. They only come for relief.”
That, in a nutshell, is the work of Lent. Lent is the hard work of accepting the cure before we can know the relief. The cure that comes from the Cross is to accept its sadness; its disappointment; its defeat; and its demands. Why does the story have to go this way? Why does the King of Love have to die alone at the hands of angry men? On Palm Sunday we will be ourselves participants in the incredible drama of both welcoming and rejecting Jesus all in the space of one morning. The crowds who fall over themselves to acclaim Jesus that first day will, by week’s end, be calling for his execution. We cannot turn away from these facts. We must look upon the innocent man condemned to die and ponder the imponderable: the Creator being mocked and beaten by those he created; the real rabble-rouser being let off scot-free; the reality – the perversion of justice – that it should be us being punished for our sins, and not the one who knew no sin.
Such are just a few of the many ironies of the Cross that make the story we have to tell in the days ahead so poignant and so terrible. Above the head of Jesus, Scripture says, Pilate will inscribe, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (John 19:19). Pilate and the religious authorities had thought to mock him, to make an example of this “so-called” Christ – and they certainly did – but not the one they intended. The example of the Cross is how we have to die in order to live. What could be a better focus for our contemplations and occupations as we commence our Lenten journey? Dying in order to live. The cure before the relief. We are back at the place we started: we cannot have Easter without the Cross.