Lent 5A

How far can you journey at the moment?

With everything on lock-down,

we may be talking your biggest journey today is the one from the bed to the couch.

Or perhaps you have gotten out for a drive or a walk in the fresh air. 

I've been trying to get outside for a run, walk, or bike ride everyday,

which is easier some days than others. 

Lent can be a hard time

and sometimes we forget we are on a journey

especially since 

most of us aren't journeying anywhere right now.

We are staying at home.

But even at home,

we are on a journey.

In my house, I sometimes forget where things are because it so big,

and when I walk into the rooms I don't use very often, 

its a whole journey of rediscovery! I find things I forgot I had.

But even at home,

we are on a journey.

The season of Lent is always a journey.

A journey through repentance, confession, reconciliation, renewal.

A journey with God of self-discovery through our Lenten practices.

A journey with Jesus on his way through life, friendship, betrayal, suffering, and death.

A journey of life and death with those preparing for baptism.

The journey of life and death.

The readings for today from the Bible all deal with this journey of death and coming to life again.

Ezekiel and the dry bones.

Romans and Paul talking about the flesh and the spirit,

The story of Jesus bring Lazarus back from the dead in the Gospel of John.

We have a hard time talking about death and facing death

in our society today.

And I am sure some of you are thinking,

Yes, Mother Elizabeth, we are having a pandemic and you want to talk about dying.

The thing about it is, I am sure people are thinking about it right now.

People are afraid of dying, afraid of the pain and the uncertainty,

and now, 

now is a good time to look at, talk about, ponder our relationship with death.

We have to face our understandings of death.

Currently all we know is this life,

while we have been promised eternal life, 

and the only way in which we could have Eternal life requires us to already be in it,

because it is eternal, beyond time and space

fully existent. 

Most of us aren't able to connect with our eternal life, we cannot access the reality of it here,

some of us, with practice, with daily prayer and meditation, we can connect to eternal life

we have those special moments, with peace, with beauty, with connection in ways we don't understand.

But back to death.

Because of Jesus, death is not an ending. 

The Book of Common Prayer theology for a funeral is one of celebration, of life, of the person, of the promises of God to be with us forever, of the promise of eternal life

Yet, we continue to wait, worry, and fear dying.

We are not sure how to handle the questions about our own non-existence. 

We cannot fathom how the world will go on without us. 

We struggle to think of our loved ones living on without us. 

We worry about experiencing pain as we die 

or about where our souls might go or how our bodies will be treated when we die. 

People fear dying alone or without a purpose, they fear all sort of things about dying.

Unfortunately many times our fears about dying hold us back from living

they keep us stuck and in unhealthy ways we cannot see.

There are some who cannot even handle funerals or talking about people who have died

which makes the whole process more sad and painful for other members of their families.

However, we cannot NOT talk about death.

The Christian faith is one centered around the process of dying and new life.

There is no Christianity without Jesus dying for us.

This is always something other faiths have a question about when they meet Christianity for the first time, because the process of dying is so central to our faith.

But isn't it a little too touchy right now? People are dying.

Not to put too fine a point on it, people are always dying,

and dying isn't something we should be afraid of.

Lent is in many ways a special time for me.

It is the anniversary of my first real sense of what Christianity was all about,

it is the anniversary of my conversion of heart.

When I was a preteen, I was part of an acted out stations of the cross service.

And I was playing the part of Jesus.

During each station, we would get into our poses and hold them for the length of the reading,

so at least thirty seconds to a minute.

Which to a preteen in a silent church felt like it lasted forever.

It was there, during the eleventh station that I experienced a true change of heart.

I had been experiencing a true Lent of the heart at the time,

I was suicidal, I was going through puberty, I was sick frequently, yet despite all my symptoms and pain, there wasn't any relief and sometimes I was even being told I was lying and making it all up.

I was in a very dismal place in my life.

And there, during the eleventh station, I was lying in a dim silent church on a wooden cross, looking up at one of my friends who was holding a hammer over my wrist in a mock presentation of Jesus being nailed to a cross

And it hit me, Jesus actually died for me.

Went through all the pain and sorrow

gave his life up

in this ridiculous way

so that I could live

and here I was thinking life wasn't even worth living.

And he died so that I could live.

it was a big realization for a preteen.

And even when I think back on that story now, when I relive that experience

I am awed and astounded

at Jesus

at God

at this life we have

at how much love God has for us

at how much dying is a part of new life.

For all the conversation about death

and we really need to confront the world's unending fear of death

Death is natural and a part of the larger process of the world's renewal and life cycle

Death is the gateway for us to know the true meaning of life with God.

Lent is never easy, and certainly this year, we have been given a hard situation to deal with.

God is calling us through this time.

Perhaps if we can have some prayer and conversations about our fears around dying

and our understandings of dying,

we can be better prepared, better opened to the new life which is coming

the new life waiting for us

in the great celebration that is Easter.

Martha put her trust in Jesus and she was comforted in that.

Yes, Jesus did bring Lazarus back from the dead, but even before he had,

she was comforted by her trust in him.

Lent is a time we contemplate the impending death of Jesus for our sins

we will go on this journey, figuratively, emotionally, digitally, spiritually

through betrayal and abandonment and death

but the journey does not end with these things

there is more to the story.

We are going through a journey of loneliness, of fear, of death,

but the journey will not end with these things.

there will be more to this story.

Where is your journey going this Lent?

Amen