Well, here we go again! Ash Wednesday is this week and we begin the season of Lent, that great season of penance. We start with “You are dust and to dust you shall return” and things go downhill from there. Then we have to give up chocolate or wine or desserts or something else, we really, really like! We struggle through that for six whole weeks until finally, finally we get to Easter! Whew, we can say the Alleluias again, we can eat what we want again, we can be happy again at least until we come around again to the next Ash Wednesday.
Have you ever wondered to yourself, why am I doing this? What is the point? Yeah, I know this is what I am supposed to do as an Episcopalian and it probably makes me somehow a better person. But really, why do we put ourselves through this torture for six weeks? And what good does it really do? I mean honestly, did you become a lot better person after you went through your Lenten penance last year. So why do we bother?
Let us look at the Scripture readings for today. In the first one, we have Elisha who is being forced into a change in his life. He is going to have to move from one place spiritually to another place. Elijah is being taken away. Elisha is going to have to take his place. You will notice that he gets told that several times. People tell him, “Hey, did you know that Elijah is going to be taken from you today?” The unsaid but insinuated part is, “You are going to miss him and it is going to be an uncomfortable change.” What does Elisha say in response? He says, “Yeah, I know it—be quiet.” You see even the great men of God and great men of faith do not necessarily embrace change or the pain of growth. Yet we see him hang in there with Elijah until the tornado comes and carries him off to heaven. Elijah gives him the option of staying behind but Elisha says, “As the Lord lives and while you live, I will not leave you.” And while it is painful, Elisha stays with him. And after Elijah is gone, Elisha picks up the work that Elijah has been doing. It is tough but he hangs in there.
In our gospel reading we start off with the words, “Six days later.” Six days later than what? The event that took place on the Mountain of Transfiguration is a sort of parallel or confirmation to the event that took place 6 days earlier. Six days earlier Jesus and the disciples were on the way to Caesarea Philippi. Jesus asked his disciples, “What are people saying about me?” The disciples said, “Well, they are saying this and they are saying that.” Then Jesus said, “What do you think? Who do you think that I am?” Peter, speaking for all the disciples said, “You are the Christ.” Jesus tells Peter, “Great answer! God Himself has revealed that to you.” Jesus then begins telling the disciples that he was going to go to Jerusalem, he was going to die there, and then he would be raised back to life. Then Peter rebukes, that is he scolds Jesus and tells Jesus that “No way, that will not happen to you!” Peter was speaking from his understanding of what he thought the Christ was going to do and be. But Jesus, instead of simply shaking his head and saying something like, “Well, you will understand all this later on” He says, “Get behind me, Satan! You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but the things of man.” Then Jesus says to the disciples and the crowd, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. Wow, this is pretty serious. Peter goes from being wonderfully inspired by God to being Satan. The disciples and the others who are following Jesus go from the spiritual euphoria of Jesus being recognized as the Christ to being told they have to deny themselves and pick up their crosses and to lose their lives for Jesus and the gospel’s sake.
So on the one hand here we have the great confession that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God and six days later Peter, James and John get a visual and verbal confirmation of that on the Mountain. What a spiritual high! Literally! But on the other hand, that spiritual high and joy brackets the other message that Jesus told Peter and the rest of them. Life as a follower of Jesus is not simply the confession that he is the Christ. It is not simply the understanding that Jesus is the Son of the Living God. No, Jesus tells us that we need to deny ourselves—we need to pick up our cross and follow Jesus. We need to lose our lives for the sake of Jesus and the gospel. And this is why we need Lent.
I don’t know about you, but this type of thinking – losing my life for the sake of the gospel – is pretty hard to keep in the forefront of my mind. Life goes on. We have phone calls to make, appointments to keep, children to watch; we just have our day to day responsibilities, our jobs to take care of. And guess what? This taking up my cross, this denying myself business gets kind of lost in the shuffle. That is why we have this season. It is so that we can remind ourselves of what as Christians we are supposed to be about.
Lent typically is composed of two things; it is a time of forsaking something and picking up something. Why do this? We forsake something for the self-discipline of it, for the denying of self. And when we want to do whatever it is we gave up during the season, we remember Jesus saying to deny ourselves and that this is a symbol of our submitting our lives to him. But while it is a good thing to deny ourselves, it is also a time of picking up something else. It is a time of trying to begin doing something that we ought to be doing. It may be spending time reading God’s word and meditating on what God tells us. It may giving more money to the church, more than your pledge, it may be giving more time to others who need you either in the church or in our community. If you are not sure what you can do, please see one of the priests – we have a list of needs where volunteers like you are needed. It may be that you can spend more time in prayer for others. It may be coming to morning or evening prayer or to one or more of the weekday masses. The fact is: Lent is intensely personal. It is between you and God. You need to spend some serious time thinking about Lent. You need to consider what you should give up. You need to consider what you need to begin doing. If you do not spend the time in preparation, then it will probably end up being meaningless religious activity.
So here we are. Ash Wednesday is this coming Wednesday and we begin the season of Lent. Let us, like Elisha, hang in there and embrace spiritual growth recognizing it may be hard. And while we remember and confess that Jesus is the Christ and rejoice in the manifestation of his deity on the mountain, let us remember what Jesus told us right before he went on that mountain and deny ourselves and pick up our crosses and follow him.
