04 1st Sunday in Lent

The season of Lent is finally among us. I don’t know how it is for you, but my hunch is that in general people do not necessarily welcome Lent with the same kind of enthusiasm and excitement as they welcome Christmas or Easter.  We have all heard jokes about Lent before, am I right (give me a joke)? I think I may be guilty of spreading them myself. But the more I learn about Lent, the more I am coming to the conclusion that it is not that bad.

Now the sinful nature that lives in me tells me that I am crazy to feel that way.  What in the world are you talking about CJ? There is nothing good about Lent. You have to feel guilty, you have to give up something that you like. You have to be miserable and talk about sin and not only is it not fun, but it is not popular either. I mean there is enough going on in our world to feel bad about, the last thing we need is something worse to feel bad about.

Of course the problem with listening to my sinful nature is that he is never right. Have you ever experienced a time when you chose to listen to your sinful nature and thought. “Boy am I glad I did that.” No. Because when we allow sin to rule in our lives, the only thing that we are left with is death and destruction.

Lent is an opportunity to wage war against that sinful nature. To say, you are not the boss of me. It is a time to be renewed in our walk with our God. It is a time to get back to the basics and to re-orient our lives so that we are following our Lord and not just ourselves. 

This means that you don’t give something up in order to make you feel bad. You give something up because you are saying, I am not going to let anything be more important to in my life than my Lord. You don’t pray because you are trying to become a bigger spiritual giant. You pray because God wants that close and deep relationship with us. We don’t confess our sins so that someone else can look down on us, but we confess our sins so that we can hear again that our God forgives our sins.

Now perhaps there are some of you that are out there thinking. Well that is fine and good, but I’ve got real problems going on right now. I haven’t had a job in months, and I may be fasting, but not because I am choosing to. Or, Are you kidding me? My relationship with my spouse is all messed up. How can I think about my relationship with God. Or, I suffer enough thank you very much, if you went to my school or worked at my job, you would know better. So what your saying sounds good, but let’s be practical.

If that is how you are feeling, or if that is going through your mind, then know this…Lent is for you. In a very real way, Lent is a new beginning a fresh start. It is a way to say, Lord, I want you to be the Lord of my life. Please remove form me everything that I try to place in that spot.

It is not that Lent is a magical formula that will make all our problems go away. But in it we are reminded of that peace that we have which surpasses all human understanding.  Observing Lent allows us to remind ourselves, to remind our sinful natures that Jesus is Lord. And that we are not.

Now I am willing to bet that right now, some of your sinful natures are saying.  That guy is a nut he doesn’t know what he is talking about. You don’t have to give up anything. You don’t have to do anything. Everything is good exactly the way it is.

If that is the case, the only thing I can say is that when you take Lent seriously, and use it in the way that it was intended, then you will find a freedom that you have not known before. And it is really a wonderful thing. It won’t make your problems go away. But it will help you to put them in perspective and to remind you of what is really important in life, and of what matters most.

Lent is not for the spiritually elite. It is not for the clergy or church workers. It is not for the person who has it all together and doesn’t need any help from anyone else. Lent is for the sinner who is broken and finds that life has gotten out of hand and out of control. Lent is for the person who feels like they have hit bottom and cannot take anymore. Lent is for the person who wakes up in the morning and dreads and is not looking forward to the day ahead. Because in the midst of these things that we face, Lent reminds us that Jesus is the only thing that matters.

If you want to be healthy and strong you train for it. You don’t just show up for a marathon and run. Well I guess you could, but you would not be a happy camper for very long. No, if you want to run a marathon you train. You put your body through turmoil so that you will have the strength that you need to endure the race and so that you can know the joy of having finished the race.

Now we don’t practice the disciplines of Lent in order to earn anything from God. We practice them because our sinful nature needs the reminder. Remember this is a constant battle that we find ourselves in. If any of us thinks that we are without sin, then we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

I would invite you to take up the practice of Lent this season and use it as an opportunity to grow in your relationship with your God. Use it to allow him to bring his healing into the brokenness that you find going on in your world. Seek him in prayer. Study his word. Fast so that he is the most important thing in your life. Humble yourselves and let him lift you up. It is amazing how humility can change a bad situation that we find ourselves in. It is just that our sinful nature doesn’t like it all that much.

During this season of Lent we will find some pretty cool things going on in the lessons that  are read on the weekends. The Old testament lesson will retell the story of God’s salvation. Today we see how he saved Noah and his family from the flood. We also see God’s promise to never destroy the world in that we again.

The new testament lessons will focus on the significance of the cross in our lives and also on baptism and what it is to live as God’s baptized children. Today’s lesson is one on baptism. Now you want to talk about an interesting lesson.

It starts out good enough. Jesus the righteous one suffers once for all of us unrighteous ones. He pays the price for our sins. This doesn’t mean that we can now run around doing whatever we want, because Jesus picked up the tab. But it means that we don’t have to allow sins that we have confessed to continually weigh us down and destroy us. Because they have been forgiven it. It means that no matter how bad we have messed something up, we can’t mess it up beyond what God can fix.

Then we get this stuff about proclaiming to the spirits in prision. And what does that mean? Good question. There has been so much debate over these verses that no one is really sure what exactly they mean. Expect I will say this. They make clear in no uncertain terms that Jesus is victorious over evil.

But the thing is not the spirits in prision and what that means. The important thing is that baptism saves us. It saves us because Jesus, the righteous one paid the price for our sins. So we live as his forgiven people. Baptism is not just a washing like a shower, but it is the ability to have a clean conscious before God for the sake of Christ.

This is no small thing. How easy is it for us to carry around guilt and burdens. And yet, the forgiveness of our God is real and certain. If you have never experienced private confession and absolution, I would invite you to take advantage of that. It is almost indescribable. The feeling of that weight being lifted off of your shoulders and living in the freedom of the forgiveness of Jesus. It is truly awesome.

You are forgiven. You are God’s child. You are dearly loved by him. You live in his grace and mercy. These things are all true. It is just that we need to be reminded of them now and again. And that is what Lent does. I pray that you will experience all the good things that God has in store for you, and that you will know his peace which passes all human understanding. Lent is indeed good. Amen.