I was signing a letter to friends the other day. How to sign off? “Blessings,” “Peace and love,” “Your friend, Jude”? Certainly not “Sincerely,” after all these are friends! If it were Christmas I would know what to write, “Merry Christmas.” If it were at Easter, “Happy Easter!” But it’s not those seasons we associate with merriment and joy. It’s Lent. I didn’t do this, but I wanted to sign my letter, “Happy Lent.” Even friends who know me well would think that a bit bizarre. But between you and me, why not “Happy Lent?”
I know we have associated Lent as a season of seeming “doom and gloom.” The stripped-down altar, sanctuary and the undecorated church walls don’t exactly communicate happy thoughts. In the past we would even cover the statues with violet coverings to add to the solemnity of the season. I am glad the churches where I go to preach don’t do that anymore. During Lent I like to look around at the friendly faces of my companions on the Lenten journey — the saints. They went ahead and wait for me. Their lives of sacrifice and love for neighbor remind me what Lent and, indeed, all the Christian life is about. In my Catholic tradition I ask them to join me in prayer this Lent for myself and my companions on the road of faith.
Back to the question I asked: why not sign a letter, or e-mail, with “Happy Lent?” Why not think of Lent as a happy season, or at least one of joy? How can we say that? Well, read the Scriptures today and hear the Good News God proclaims to us in the Word.
2 Chronicles was written during the period of restoration (around 520-400 B.C.E.) after the disastrous Babylonian exile. The chronicler (an unknown author) advises the community that, if they want to remain a viable faith community, they should keep their communal worship and faith life pure. He warns them that what caused their ruin wasn’t so much the overwhelming power of the Babylonians, as much as the moral decadence of the people. The whole community, including the highest ranking religious leaders, were responsible for the nation’s downfall and the destruction of the Temple. Their religious practice had become “polluted” and so collapse was inevitable.
If the nation had kept its focus on God, the chronicler argues, the 70-year exile in Babylon would not have happened. He wants the people to make sure they remember their past so that they don’t repeat it.
2 Chronicles reminds us in Lent that our worship, prayer and disciplines are not just personal practices. We are a community in repentance for our personal failures, but also those of our church. Of course we are talking here of recent scandals, but also other examples of how our church as a whole and our local faith community in particular, may not have lived up to our gospel call to: feed the hungry, strengthen the hands of the weak, offer sincere worship, practice forgiveness, etc.
So where is the “Happy Lent” message in 2 Chronicles? It’s that when God saw the miserable condition of the people in slavery God rescued them. God even used the pagan king of Persia, Cyrus, to effect that rescue! As someone said, “God can work outside the box to help us.” Despite the people’s continual transgressions, “Early and often did the Lord, the God of their ancestors, send his [sic] messengers to them, for God had compassion on his people.” God did not give up on the unfaithful people even when they have forgotten their God.
Indeed it is a “Happy Lent” as we are reminded that God has not given up on us, or our church and continues to make loving and merciful gestures towards us. Lent is a time for us to wake up to God’s outreach towards us and to respond by turning back to our God. The prayers and sacrifices we make this Lent can assist us in making that fuller turn in God’s direction.
In ancient mythology the serpent was a sign of healing. The United States Military Medical Corps has as its symbol a serpent entwined on a staff. In the Book of Numbers (21:4-9) the Israelites in the desert had grown weary of the journey and complained against God to Moses and so they were bitten by seraph serpents. For their healing Moses told the people to look on the serpent on the staff which he had raised before them. Those who did were healed.
The people suffered during their long journey in the desert so they turned away from God. Suffering can do that to us — tempt us to give up on God. Or, we might conclude that God is off somewhere “on high” and is not concerned about our “lesser concerns,” though they certainly aren’t “lesser” for us! We struggle as we try to make sense of the mystery of suffering for ourselves and others.
Suffering seems to be part of the DNA of our human condition and we don’t always have a choice. But God had a choice. God could have stayed out of the mess and avoided suffering. Our gospel today is one more reminder that our God doesn’t stay aloof and above the pain — because God is a lover. “For God so loved the world….” Lovers feel the pain of the beloved. If someone we love hurts — friend, spouse, child — then we hurt too.
God, John tells us, did not send the Son into the world to condemn us, but to save us. Jesus was the faithful child of God who preached the message of God’s love. He practiced that love towards all, even his enemies and outsiders. He welcomed them to his table. He didn’t have to suffer persecution and death on the cross, if he had just stopped preaching God’s love. He could have walked away from suffering — stayed here for a while and then, when the going got rough, leave. But he didn’t quit on us; he stayed the course, even when he saw his death coming. God showed God’s love for us in Jesus’ life and in his dying on the cross. For that is what it means: “For God so loved the world that God gave his only Son.”
The cross was a great injustice against Jesus. When we look with awe and reverence on the cross we aren’t celebrating an instrument of execution, but the sum of Jesus’ life and message: not even the horrible threat of death could turn him away from his purpose of revealing God’s love for us.
Lent can help us focus on the world’s suffering. If this is a “Happy Lent” for us it is because we remember that God is with us, especially in our pain and alienation and doesn’t turn away from us. God overcame all the evils we humans could do and raised Jesus up. Like the Israelites in the desert, we too turn our eyes, not to the symbolic serpent on the pole, but to Jesus on the cross. When we look in his direction we experience healing from our sins and the realization of just how much God loves us. In the light of Jesus we see that God’s answer to sin is the offer of life.
What can we do? Stop pitting God against us and blaming God for the world’s pain. Rather, see God changing positions, moving alongside and standing with us. Note too, that Jesus didn’t just do good and avoid evil, but that he challenges us not to shirk our responsibilities to move, as he did, to be with the outcast and those in pain. Like Jesus, we must do good and resist evil — whatever causes suffering. In those places of resistance we will, like Jesus, endure the cross, but there we will also discover him as well.