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On
Wednesday, as the disciples of Jesus, we
begin our annual Lenten journey with him towards Jerusalem.
Already, the long shadow of the cross casts itself in our direction
from
the hill of Calvary. Already, the
distant horizon of Holy Week is in view, and we are beaconed to enter
the dusty
road with our fellow pilgrims and make our way once more towards the
source of
our faith.
Behind the shadow
of
the cross is the brilliant light of eternity, shining forth from the
throne of
God Himself, and drawing us towards an immortal and transcendent
destiny more
glorious than anything that we can imagine. But how do we get
there from here? And once there, being the flawed and earthly
beings that we are, how do we stand in the presence of the Ancient of
Days? How do we stand and behold the
glory of the One that formed countless billions of suns in His mighty
hands,
then cast them out across eternity that we might look up at them at
night and
be reminded of just how small, and petty, and insignificant we really
are. And how many universes does He have that lie
beyond this one that is still incomprehensible to us?
This is the
source
of our faith. This is the One that
created us and placed us here and gave us the free will to either find
our way
back to Him, or perish in the delusions of our own grandeur that this
same free
will allows us. It is these delusions of grandeur that convince so many
that
humanity is at the center of its own universe, and that the goal of
humankind’s
existence upon the earth is to exploit every creature, every person,
and even
the very planet itself to the selfish benefit of the few that are in
control: Those that set themselves up as gods and
enslave the rest of the world for their own material benefit:
Those
that sit in the seats of worldly power
wearing gloves of velvet that we might not behold their fists of
iron:
Those that stand in opposition to the truths
that we have known since Adam roamed the world and tell us lies:
That sin is relative to the situation, that
the end justifies the means, that physical pleasure is the goal of
human
existence, that there is such a thing as a just war.
When the
complaint arises
that this goes
against the teaching of God, they respond by twisting the tools of
science into
a secular religion of their own making that denies the very existence
of
God. And so, they convert theologians to
this religion of “humanism” and proclaim to us that God, the source of
our
faith, is dead. And so, many believe and
many turn away from the source of our faith, and we witness a world
that sinks
ever deeper into the excrement of its own depravation; a world where
money is
worshipped, where sin of the most heinous kind is regarded as virtue,
and where
life could not be any cheaper.
Now it is
Lent once
again, and Jesus gathers
us, his disciples, and prepares us for the journey to the cross.
Its is he that has been sent to lead us back
to the source of our faith, to the God that for some unfathomable
reason loves
us so much that he became manifest among us in the form of his own son
that we
might be saved: The God that loves us so
much that he took all the sins of the world upon himself and off of our
shoulders, that we might be able to stand up before the throne of the
Mighty
One Himself and not perish before His true grandeur.
And so we follow
Jesus to the cross and we watch in horror as he dies for us; as he
accepts the
sentence that we deserve and sheds his Precious Blood that our sins
might be
washed away. And as we stand there in
awe, the shadow of the cross disappears and the brilliant light of God
shines
forth around us, envelopes us, and as our eyes adjust to the light of
eternity
we see Jesus standing with us and we are home, reunited forever with
the source
of our faith.
This is the
answer
to the second question that I asked, “…how do we stand in the presence
of the
Ancient of Days?” We stand before God
because Christ stands with us. Knowing
this, we can now ask Jesus himself the first question, “But how do we
get there
from here?” He has already answered this
for us in tonight’s Gospel, which begins, “Jesus said to his
disciples…”
And who are his disciples? All of us that have chosen to follow
him and
who now make this Lenten pilgrimage with him to Jerusalem and the
cross:
Those of us who join with him tonight in this
Passover supper in which he once again offers himself up for us, as he
has
promised he will do, until he comes to take us home to his Father and
ours –
the source of our faith, forever and ever.
Amen.
The lesson that
he
teaches us is that in response to his promise, the promise of the cross
that
leads us to life eternal, he expects us to live in imitation of the
love that
he has shown us: To turn the other
cheek, to bless those that curse us, to give more than what is asked,
to offer
mercy without limit and forgiveness without end, and to love
unconditionally
absolutely everyone – both friend and foe – to the utmost of our
ability.
He expects us to
do this,
and the source of our faith requires it.
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