Read John 8:31-33.
If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples (v. 31).
I couldn’t help but notice the gaudy flyer taped across the glass entry at my favorite grocery store. “Easter,” the handbill confidently announced, “Is On Aisle 13.”
Curious, I walked around to take a look. But I was disappointed from the outset.
Aisle 13 was overrun with fuzzy stuffed bunnies—pale blue, pink, white, aqua, and an obscure kind of mauve. Next, I found candy, enough to keep several dental offices busy well into the summer. There were greetings cards too, sporting messages such as “Hoppy Easter” and “Egg-static We’re Friends!” Baskets, ribbons, toys, and various hollow plastic eggs rounded out the display.
I felt tricked, victim of another bait-and-switch tactic by the advertisers. There wasn’t the slightest hint of a faith-based Easter anywhere on Aisle 13.
The authentic theme of Easter is diametric—both beautiful and horrific at the same time. If we are going to acknowledge the season at all, it’s imperative that we consider the complete picture:
Much about our world is spoiled by fear. The Easter story recognizes that truth, faces the dread with courage, and emerges in a triumph that simply cannot be appropriately celebrated outside some understanding of freedom’s tremendous cost.
The story of Easter is the story of Jesus—an itinerant rabbi, a carpenter from the small town of Nazareth—who was a real man: God in the flesh living love and goodness out loud. He died on Good Friday, a slow, agonizing, public torture designed by Rome to demonstrate the immediate and terrible consequences of disrupting the brutal Pax Romana, the peace of Rome. The notice tacked above the Savior’s head could easily have read: “Dangerous Freethinker,” “Radical,” or “This man violated the status quo.”
But Jesus’ idea of freedom was problematic for more than just Rome; it disturbed many of his fellow Israelites too. Jesus failed to fulfill the “Conquering Warrior Hero” concept or to deliver the political freedom they sought. He spent three years explaining and clarifying what he meant by the phrase “kingdom of God,” but the crowds kept looking for something more familiar.
Today, like those early followers, we still tend to reinvent the character and the picture of the God we worship, so the image fits more tidily with the values and the priorities that define the culture in which we are comfortable. In truth, the huge win Jesus achieved at Easter still calls for us to reject the trap of the status quo. It is a W over greed; selfishness; religiosity; and the entire me-first, consumer-driven mentality that illustrates our foundational cultural malfunction. But it’s easier to replace the scandal of the Cross with a basket of candy and less taxing when we focus on the traditions of springtime rather than an empty tomb. We’d rather not think too much about the heavy price paid for the freedom we take so lightly.
The bottom line is that we’re not going to find Easter on Aisle 13! And we’re not going to find it at all unless we are prepared to talk about the meaning of the Cross. Jesus walked into all of this with eyes wide open and a heart full to overflowing with a generous and heroic love for our world. This life is a journey, and I want to walk this section of the path with my eyes open too, with the Prince of Peace walking at my side.
SACRED RHYTHM
Growing up, my favorite thing about the season of Lent was Shrove Tuesday, the last day before our acts of self-denial set in for the long haul. Back in England we simply called it “Pancake Day.” Later, living on the Gulf Coast of Florida, I learned about the term “Fat Tuesday.” But, sitting around my mother’s kitchen table as a hungry ten-year-old, I didn’t care what they called it, so long as she served up her amazing English-style pancakes, rich crepes floating in lemon juice and sugar. My brother and I tore into them like there was no tomorrow.
Of course that was the original idea of Fat Tuesday. There really was no tomorrow so far as indulgence was concerned, not until Easter, well over six weeks down the road. But I grew up in a vigorously Protestant household, and I can’t recall any particular Lenten uptick in our spiritual practices; at least not until the short run from Palm Sunday through Good Friday and into Easter morning.
I have since come to believe that a thoughtful observance of the spiritual calendar, a kind of sacred rhythm, has a lot of merit in a world that has become so overbearingly secular. I want to invite us all to share in this devotional journey to “continue in [Christ’s] word” and to develop a sacred rhythm. I want us to be prepared to understand the meaning of the Cross.
At the start of this journey, I invite you to contemplate the ways that you have experienced the message of the Cross fitting into the message of the spiritual calendar.
Prayer: You are both the guide and the destination, gracious God. Please grant each one of us the blessing of Divine Presence as we journey through Lent. Amen.
Day Two: Ash Wednesday
LIGHT AND THE DISPOSITION OF LIFE
Read John 12:1-19.
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him (vv. 1-2).
Rebekah and I tell the following story from our epic trip “out West,” back when Andrew and Naomi were still snarky teens. We drove from Tampa all the way to Colorado and beyond, 6,800 miles over three weeks.
One day, in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, we signed up for one of those “abandoned gold mine” tours. The train took us a half-mile into the heart of the mountain. Eventually we came into contact with darkness on a level I had never experienced before. Our guide turned off all the lights until there was just one remaining. Then he stood on a chair.
“Close your eyes and put your hand two inches in front of your face,” the guide said. “Keep them closed. Now I’m going to turn out the single remaining light, and I want you to open your eyes after I count to three.”
The result was shocking. Not only could we not see our hands in front of our faces, we could see absolutely nothing at all. It was as if matter no longer existed, just sound, and there wasn’t much of that because we were all almost too nervous to even breathe.
About thirty seconds later—an extremely long time in those conditions—our guide told us all to hold perfectly still and to be completely quiet because he was going to light a small wooden match. When he did, the effect was amazing; we could see everything! We were in a cavern about the size of a three-hundred-seat auditorium, but there wasn’t a cubic foot of the space that did not experience at least some degree of illumination.
Well, he got the “Wow!” element he was looking for. The tour was a definite success. Nobody found a smidgen of gold, but we didn’t care and we all went on our way happy. But my mind could not stop working as I thought about the effect that even one small spark of light will always have on darkness. As the Gospel of John says,