Scriptural Sermons

Tokenism. I guess there are worse crimes, but there are no crimes more insidious. Tokenism pretends to take cause with the plight of its victim. It pretends to take responsibility to right the wrong. But proof of the pretense is the form thrust effort it makes – an effort that is not committed, not sustained, not costly, not relevant, and so not effective. In fact, the only thing the form thrust effort produces is a false sense of righteousness. Sad to say, I think that we as a culture have come to mark Lent with something akin to tokenism, with the notion that a form thrust effort discharges our Lenten obligation and that for having made it, we are righteous. I got first inkling of this the morning following Ash Wednesday. I was listening to a morning radio show in which the host and hostess of the show were conducting inane deliberations over what they should give up for Lent. The hostess was only certain of what she wasn’t willing to give up. "Well it’s not going to be chocolate, and it’s not going to be coffee, and it’s not going to be booze, and it’s not going to be profanity!" she giggled. Apparently what ever she was willing to give up would involve no sacrifice whatsoever. The host was certain of what he was going to give up. He was going to give up beer. Beer, he lamented, was having a bad effect on his waistline. "It’s not just you ladies who are getting ready for bikini season," He joked. "I am planning to exchange one six pack for another." I got my next inkling of this the following day at a local coffee house. Seated at the table next to me were two women. One of them, taking an enormous bite out of a paczki, complained peevishly to the other, “I’m really dying for a brownie, but I gave up chocolate for Lent.” I will spare you the inkling that followed that one, and the one that followed that one, and the one that followed that one. It is a great enough miscarriage of Lent to mark it with tokenism, but miscarriage crosses over to mockery when even tokenism is practiced self-servingly or with grievance. Again and again we render our faith as vacuous as our culture, then harbor the suspicion that our faith lacks power and truth for our lives. So how then are we to mark lent, how should we reclaim it from our culture so that our faith, especially in this holiest of seasons, may be repossessed of power and truth for our lives? Lent’s true meaning is found in a heartfelt remembrance of the sacrifice that Jesus made for our sin. And so, let us consider that sacrifice: It was John the Baptist’s proclamation that the Kingdom of God was at hand that first stirred in Jesus the sense that what had been portended by his miraculous birth was now unfolding. And so, Jesus went down to Judea to be baptized by John. Upon Jesus’ baptism, Jesus sense was confirmed. The heavens opened, the Spirit descended upon him, and the voice of God declared, “You are my son, my beloved one, with you I am well pleased.” It was indeed unfolding, but that was not all. At his baptism the voice of God also imparted to him that he would be required to make the supreme sacrifice; that he would be required to die. This was because the voice of God declared that Jesus was his beloved one. Jesus knew who God’s beloved one was. He knew it because he knew Scripture, and the prophet Isaiah had foretold five hundred years prior that God’s beloved one would be held of no account, would be oppressed and afflicted, would be despised and rejected by humanity, and finally, cut off from the land of the living. In short, God’s beloved one would be required to make the supreme sacrifice. He would be required to die. Jesus then proceeded to meet his fate. It was a fate met no easier by the fact that he was the Son of God. That offered him no protection, for in order that he share completely our common lot, the divinity within Jesus, as Paul reminds us in this morning’s epistle lesson, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied itself and took the form of a slave. Jesus was fully human. We need only imagine how his fate would have been for us to know how it was for him – his anxiety and concern, his loneliness and fear, his sorrow and suffering, and, as this morning’s gospel lesson reminds us, his terrible temptation to avoid his fate, to renounce it, which he was at all times perfectly free to do. To prepare him for his fate, Jesus, immediately following his baptism, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. He fasted for forty days and nights, after which the tempter appeared to him. The tempter knew his art well, for he appealed to Jesus with the promise that he could have it both ways – that he could still be God’s beloved one, yet he need not make the supreme sacrifice; he need not die. He could be God’s beloved one by providing the people with bread and a just political order. What good would his death accomplish? What good does any death accomplish? But Jesus mastered this temptation. And so the tempter bided his time until the very end of Jesus’ ministry when Jesus’ death was squarely before him. Jesus’ determination to die, the tempter knew, would hold fast at the beginning of his ministry when his death was far off, but timing, the tempter knew, is everything. What’s more, the time allotted for Jesus’ ministry had been so short. Less than one year. He had spent it preparing for his death as best he could – teaching the people about the coming Kingdom of God his death would inaugurate, prefiguring its power and quality in his mighty works, instructing his disciples what lay ahead….But his ministry had been fragmentary and incomplete. Had he done enough? Would they figure it out? Would they come to understand? The tempter too knew too to prey upon these concerns. And true to the tempter’s hope, in the darkness of his last night, moments before his arrest, Jesus faltered. He threw himself to the ground and distraught begged his father to find another way. “Father if it is possible let this cup pass from me.” But his father was silent. The tempter waited with baited breath, but Jesus mastered this temptation as well. He recovered himself and said unto his father’s silence, “Thy will be done.” The tempter saw his final chance as Jesus hung suffering on his cross. The worst still lay ahead for him, as anyone who has witnessed death agony knows. “If you are the Son of God, save yourself!” came the tempter’s voice through the jeers of the crowd. Again, Jesus overcame this temptation until the very last moment of his life. The physical agony of crucifixion, the emotional agony of the rejection, hatred, and betrayal of all humanity, the spiritual agony of the steadfast silence of his father overcame him. Broken and shattered he cried out, “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” His faith and obedience gave way, but for the tempter it was too late. Jesus had made the supreme sacrifice. He was dead. Lent’s true meaning then is found in first in remembrance of the sacrifice of Jesus, and then, simply, in honest reflection about our own lives over against that sacrifice. It is found in reflection about questions like these: Have we ourselves, acceding to our culture, come to allow Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin to hold so little import that we trivialize or mock it through tokenism? Do we live lives worthy of his sacrifice? Are we loyal to him? Does he come first in our lives? Could we stand before him? Do we acknowledge the gulf between God’s righteousness and our sin that called forth his sacrifice for us? And we will know if we have found Let’s true meaning if our reflection issues in repentance, which particularly in lent, but in every season of the Christian year, is the practice and mark of the true Christian. Amen.