“Let the same mind be in you that was
in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 2:5
Dear Redeemer Family:
It is to the above text, for this
Passion Sunday, a vision of disciples remade in the mind of Christ,
that all of Lent builds. The season of baptismal preparation provides
a rich palette of biblical texts in which the people of God both
strive and fail to live faithfully into the mind of Christ. The grace
of God provides a never-ending spring of encouragement. From the
contrasting prayers of the hypocrites and those who pray in secret,
through the amazing but flawed faithfulness of Abraham and Sarah, to
the over-enthusiastic woman at the well and the reticent parents of
the one given sight, we see Sunday by Sunday just how complicated and
difficult it is to cultivate and live into the sacrificial, servant
mind of Christ. Like a steady drumbeat, Romans provides a solid
theological commentary on abundant human sin and abundant God given
grace throughout the season.
At the same time, one need not scratch
too deeply beneath the surface of these lessons of baptismal
preparation to find the living waters. In these forty days of dry
bones and lack of vision, God points us toward the paschal mystery on
the horizon and the saving waters that await our renewal. Gracious
encouragement abounds. Through the God who so loved that world that
the self-emptying Son has given, our hope is encouraged in the living
waters of a Samaritan well, in the water flowing from the rock, in
the horn of oil and the mighty outpouring of the Spirit, in mud and
washing.
Through a sublime and tightly woven symphony of stories across this season of Lent, we see God’s ancient people mirroring our own lives: the equivocation of Adam and Eve, laid against the faithfully following Abraham. Nicodemus comes with bold questions to Jesus but only under the cover and safety of darkness. The Bethany sisters both accuse and confess. In all their complexity, these characters despair and hope, work and wonder, live and die as we ourselves do. And our only real hope is every bit as complex and mysterious: the waters of baptism toward which the Church of the self-emptying Christ moves. They are waters of death, then life; of dying, then rising. Of sin swallowed up, then life given and renewed.
The Season of Lent is truly a season
of textual complexity, mystery and beauty. Enjoy it this year.
In Christ,
Pastor Rose