March 18thLent's Confrontations
To my dear TFMC family,
One of the things that I appreciate about Lent is how deeply personal it is. Lent is a season of self-reflection. While for much of the year we reflect on our outer walk with Christ — that would be our actions and how they reflect Christ, for example, through peace and justice work and sharing the love of Christ with the world — for Lent, we are asked to attend to the inner spiritual life. This is the one that calls us to draw closer to God and Christ by looking at, reflecting on, and perhaps reconciling aspects of our faith lives which need attention.
As we move closer to the cross of Christ, Jesus' story becomes far more personal. We're invited to not just read the text from a distance, as a narrative; instead, we're called to enter the story. For example, in the Gospel of John, we're invited to follow along with the 'unnamed disciple' as they move through Jesus' passion.
This means that we get to reflect on what it means to be both human and a follower of Jesus.
Lent confronts us with our limitations and frailty. In Lent, we say we believe and know, but we don't completely. Lent confronts us with the ideal which we strive for and the reality of how we live. In Lent, we're asked: Aren't you one of his followers? And we're pressed to respond.
Lent challenges our notions of power and where it comes from. Lent holds up kindness, compassion, and generosity — weak by the world's standards, but powerful by Christ's — pushing us to testify to whose kingdom we pledge allegiance. Lent forces us to look at how we participate in injustices in the world around us. Are we complicit? Are we speaking up, or speaking out? Why or why not? Lent asks us: when Jesus is hung on the cross, where are we? Are we present to suffering? Have we hidden from horror? Do we weep with those who weep? Might we sit with those in power and privilege?
Again, I've appreciated how we're working our way slowly to the cross, not moving to it in one week, but stretching out a week to a whole season. In this way, we're given space to consider our place in the story. We're given the opportunity to wrestle with, to struggle with, to reconcile, perhaps, the dissonance which we live with.
Lent ends, not with the celebration of Easter, rather with the death of Christ on the cross. Lent ends at the lowest point for the journey of the faithful, with Jesus dead and the disciples scattered. This is the final challenge of Lent: to confront our own mortality, not in the sense of "where am I going after I die," but rather to face the reality that, "I am going to die." And while we know, with the gift of very long hindsight, that death is not the end, it's still a gift to be able to face these facets of our lives on an annual basis.
For this, I am truly grateful for Lent.
Yours,
Craig Janzen Neufeld, Pastor