Newsletter March 2014

In the February newsletter I wrote a short article under the heading “where is Lent?”  Well, now in March Lent has finally arrived, which means that Easter is about seven weeks away.  Many of you are wondering if this cold winter will ever end.  Ash Wednesday and the midweek Lenten services announce that Easter and spring are on the way.  Alleluia.  (I am writing before Lent begins.)

Lent is a special time in the life of the church.  Forty days are set aside in the seven weeks before Easter for special devotional practices to prepare for the great celebration of the resurrection.  These forty days correspond to the forty days that Jesus spent wrestling with the devil in the wilderness before he began his public ministry.  As the Ash Wednesday liturgy says, during Lent we are to “contend against evil and resist whatever leads us away from love of God and neighbor” as we prepare to move out of the chill of winter into the warmth of spring, and we strive to move out of the darkness of sin into the light of the resurrection.

The most public face of Lent is the series of Lenten services on Wednesday nights that have been a feature of the Lutheran tradition for as long as any of us can remember.   Many of us have precious memories of Lenten services held in darkened churches on somber themes of the suffering and death of Jesus.  In my childhood experience, this was one of the few times we had a bit of a “free” service instead of the unchanging liturgy of Sunday’s “divine service” as it used to be called.  One pastor led a hymn sing with his trumpet at Lenten services, which was always a treat for us.  I was amazed that he could transpose by sight the hymnal notes, written in C for piano, to Bb for his trumpet.  It was quite a trick, or quite a skill, I should say.

At the center of these services was our meditation on the suffering and death of Jesus.  More than any other time of the year we would focus our attention on that dreadful spectacle of Jesus bound in Pilate’s courtyard, then tied to the pillar, and finally nailed to the cross.  Of course, every communion service “proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes” as 1^st Corinthians 11:26 says, but we did not have communion so often in those days, and I did not receive communion until I was almost 16 years old.  Things have changed for the better over the years.  Children receive communion at an earlier age.  We all partake of the Sacrament more often than before, if not weekly as the apostles and the reformers did.  And we proclaim “Christ has died. Christ is risen.  Christ will come again” in the liturgy to remind us of the fullness of the story of salvation.  Still, at the heart of our faith is the account of how Jesus suffered and died for us.  We can do no better than say what St. Paul said in 1^st Corinthians 2:2, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

For many people the vividly realistic movie “The Passion of the Christ” a few years ago was simply too painful to watch.  Maybe the movie “Son of God,” which is being released to theaters on February 28, will be a little easier to watch.  It is a dramatic portrayal of the entire life of Jesus taken from producer Mark Burnett’s ten hour mini-series “The Bible” broadcast last March on the History Channel.  And reading the story from St. Matthew’s gospel at our Lenten services will be yet easier to hear as the spoken word is a “cooler” medium than the visual.  No matter what the medium, Jesus’ suffering and death is at the center not only of Lent but of the Christian message.

Lent is also a time for some lighter fare.  This year in our parish we are using a calendar intended to promote thanksgiving to God and sharing of God’s good gifts by counting items in our home and uttering a prayer of thanks.  It is not just for children.  Over time it is intended to create a mood of thanksgiving and joy for what God has given us in our everyday lives.  It is my hope that every home in our parish will keep this calendar handy throughout the forty days of Lent and fill a coin box to give to the needy via Lutheran World Relief.

Please make this Lent a special time in your life.  Come to the Lenten services on Wednesday and join us at supper as well.  Look at the calendar and save your coins.  Eat fish on Friday.  Fast, pray, and give in the way Jesus said to do in Matthew 6, that is, quietly and privately.  And then look on the One who did everything necessary for your salvation.   For when we get to Good Friday and hear Jesus say from the cross “It is finished” we will simply bow our heads and say “thank you.”