Lent 2020

By Phil Wood

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

                                                                                       Isaiah 53:4-6

This year, Ash Wednesday fell on my birthday, February 26. Susan Spear, tipped off by Facebook that it was my birthday, commented, "In your honor I'm going to wear ashes on my forehead."

Cracked me up!

As you know, Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent. It's the beginning of a 40-day countdown to Easter. The 40 days are meant to remind us of the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness – without food – learning what it's like for a human being to suffer and what it's like to deal with temptation.

Toward the end of his time in the desert, when Jesus would have been at his weakest from lack of food, Satan came to tempt him. But Jesus, needing only the nourishment of every word that comes from the mouth of his Father, rebuffed the evil one at every turn. So Satan left him, hissing his vow to return at "an opportune time."

The practice of Lent has likely been around since apostolic time, but wasn't formalized until the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. It was intended to be a time of repentance, a time of sacrifice, and fasting from those things that take our eyes off Jesus.

Confession: I haven't always taken the 40 days of Lent very seriously. I can't say my life during Lent in years past has been much different than any of the other days of the year. I haven't even given up chocolate.

This year, I started out worse than ever. Instead of being in church on Ash Wednesday having ashes applied to my own forehead, I was in Arizona with Marianne and some friends, celebrating my birthday.

But then came the social distancing, the cancellation of flights and cruises (including the cruise down the Danube that Marianne and I had scheduled), the shutting down of hotels and restaurants and all nonessential businesses, etc., etc., etc.

All of a sudden, Lent 2020 became very different than any Lent we've ever experienced. And I can't help but see the parallels between what Lent was meant to be, and what we are all actually living today.

All of a sudden, repentance seems a little more important, doesn't it? Sacrifice and fasting have become the order of the day. We sit in our homes, putting aside all our expectations for this time in our lives, giving up almost everything that is outside our doors, watching the things we have guarded so dearly – our jobs and sources of income, our life savings – evaporating before our eyes. And we are more aware than ever that people all over the world are suffering and dying.

Thirty-four of the 40 days of Lent have marched relentlessly before our eyes, and it has not been pretty. Now, Holy Week is upon us, a Holy Week unlike any we've seen in our lifetimes.

The enormity of what Christ did for us is now, perhaps, a little more comprehensible.

We get some sense now of the agony, the sheer weight, that was upon our savior as he wept and prayed at Gethsemane and took upon himself all of the world's sin and suffering.

And we see a little more clearly why Lent was established by our church fathers so long ago.

Lest we forget.

Hope

One of the scenes from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ that is seared into my memory is Jesus in the garden with sweat dripping from his face like blood, and the serpent slithering quite near. The "opportune time" is finally at hand. Jesus rises to meet the ones who are coming for him, and he crushes the serpent with his heel. (reference Genesis 3:15)

Friends, Sunday is coming!