The Reverend Kirk T. Berlenbach

Lent I, Year C

February 21, 2010                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

I was having lunch with a friend the other day when he asked me a question.  “Why is it that you cover all the crosses and statues for Lent?”  It’s a good question, isn’t it?  Why do we do all this?  His question got me to thinking and as far as I can tell there are two basic explanations.  First, Lent is a season of simplicity, of austerity and self-denial.  We cover up the beautiful ornamentation in the church in order to remind ourselves of Jesus’ self-denial in the desert and of his suffering.  Thus we help ourselves focus on the essential elements of worship.  This is pretty straight forward and easy to accept.  But there is also a deeper reason which is not quite so palatable.  We veil the sacred symbols of the church in order to remind ourselves of the fact that before Christ’s death and resurrection, we were separated from G-D because of our sins.  We saw this first in Moses and later, in the Jerusalem Temple.  There was a long-standing belief in Judaism that to see G-D face-to-face was lethal.  After Moses spoke with G-D on Sinai, his faced glowed with such brightness that the people could not look on him directly so he had to cover his face with a veil.  Many centuries later, this theology developed into the practice of veiling off the Holy of Holies in the temple.  G-D lived there which made it so holy that only the high priest could enter it and then only on the holiest day of the year.  However, when Christ died, the Gospels record that the temple veil was torn in two.   This is one of the least known yet most important images in all of Christianity.  When the curtain tore, it showed that there was a new relationship and we were no longer separated from G-D.

But since we are Christians… since an essential part of our faith is indeed that this veil of sin which separates us from G-D has now been lifted, why do we insist on reminding ourselves of the way things used to be?   Isn’t Lent just an outmoded ritual of guilt?  Of course the answer is no.  As I said in my sermon on Ash Wednesday, Lent is not merely an exercise in morbidity and negative thinking.  Indeed, just as taking ashes on our forehead reminds us of the truth of our mortality, the veils of Lent remind us of all that G-D has done on our behalf. 

This is not an easy idea for us to accept.  Our culture loves the idea of independence.  Certainly here of all places, that is true- we are the home to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.   It is here, in Philadelphia, that our right to govern our own lives is celebrated.  Indeed the autonomy of the individual has become our most sacred of values.  The person who is self-reliant and self-defining is seen as superior. 

To be sure, these qualities can indeed be very positive.  It is important to know who you are and to have confidence in your own abilities.  Likewise, the freedom to be an individual, even when it goes against social norms, is one of the great gifts of western civilization.  However, we have come to emphasize individual autonomy to such a degree that we have lost much of our sense of dependency, on one another or even on G-D.  We stand alone, free and unburdened by any sense of debt for what we have.  We have convinced ourselves that our accomplishments and our lives are our own and that we are islands unto ourselves.  We are our own creation, independent of everything else, even G-D. 

This has had a very real effect on how we now understand religion.  For many the idea of G-D is primitive, even absurd.  G-D is a myth, the creation of a humanity that is too insecure to face life and death without the security blanket of a benevolent parent figure.  Such a vision is the hope and goal of the new atheism that increasingly dominates the scientific establishment and whole sections of bookstores today.  In their view humanity need no longer look to G-D as the source of our creation let alone for our salvation or fulfillment.  And the sooner we abandon such superstitious baggage, the sooner humanity will be freed to go on to explore a new and glorious future. 

The popularity of such ideas is ample proof that the concept of a wholly independent individual is one of the most seductive notions we have developed in the Western world.  Once we believe that we, both as a species and as individuals, are self-sufficient, we gain nothing by reflecting on a past when we were dependant on a G-D.  The past is not something to be remembered, it is an encumbrance to be shed.  Freedom is our own accomplishment.  We have achieved it entirely on our own and so there is no need to look back in grateful recognition.

But the influence of such thinking is not limited to the extremes of atheism.  It has pervaded all areas of our culture, including the Church.  Particularly in the Protestant tradition, we have a tendency to place all of our emphasis on Easter and neglect Lent and even Good Friday.  We have grown beyond the crucified Christ and focus only on the risen one.  Please do not misunderstand me.  Our salvation has been accomplished through Jesus’ death and resurrection and the sacrifice that he made does not need to be repeated.  Yet just because Jesus changed the nature of our relationship with G-D does not mean that we can then just forget the way it used to be.  Indeed, we have a very real need acknowledge where we came from and only by examining the past can be come to appreciate what we now have.

Today’s lesson from Deuteronomy is devoted to ritualizing just such a practice.  The land which Israel came to occupy was promised to them by G-D.  But as years passed, as they lived there over generations, it would be easy to forget where they came from, that it was G-D who liberated them from Egypt and who lead them into their new home.  If they lost that connection, it would forever alter who they were.  And so G-D established a ritual to help them remember and to remind them of all they have to be grateful for.  “My ancestor was a wandering Aramean…”

3000 years later, we still have this need.  That is why Lent is so important.  Although we know that Christ changed our relationship with G-D, it is good to recall that once things were different.  The veils we place over the crosses and ornaments remind us of where we came from- of a time when G-D was removed from us by virtue of our sins and the nature of the Law.  Only in remembering the Temple Veil that once stood between us and G-D, can we recognize and appreciate our own wonderful reality- that nothing separates us from our Lord.

In contrast to the secular humanist point of view, we are not self-generating or sufficient.  We exist as a creation of G-D’s love and by that same love, we have been reconciled. 

By dedicating these forty days to the practice of self-examination, we are powerfully reminded of the truth; that were it not for G-D’s grace, our sins would still be a barrier between us.  Through scrutinizing our lives and our hearts, we come to recognize in ourselves those sins that once created the curtain that existed between us and our Creator.  Feeling the full weight of our sins is not a pleasant task.  When we really face up to and acknowledge all the damage we have caused to others and to ourselves through our selfishness, anger and neglect, it causes us to feel guilt and sorrow and shame.  But while such feelings are unpleasant we must work through them in order that we might then truly appreciate that through Jesus’ death and resurrection those same sins have now also been forgiven.  To put it another way, only by remembering our enslavement, can we appreciate our freedom.  And without the hard reminders of Lent, the joy of Easter has little meaning. 

So take advantage of the opportunity of Lent.  Don’t look past the truth of the somber purple that cover so much of the beauty of our church.  Instead take this time to look back at your live and don’t be afraid to plumb the depth of your hearts.  For only by acknowledging the presence of the veil can we truly rejoice when it is lifted.