My favorite part of Lent is by far the beginning, Ash Wednesday, which we celebrated a week ago. I love the rituals, the sounds, the textures. As our pastor traces the shape of a cross on our foreheads with ashes he tells us, “From dust you came, and to dust you will return, but for God, who creates eternal life.” Afterwards we kneel and pray and sing and contemplate the brevity of our life on earth. Somehow thinking of life’s swift passage and the fact that it is already February of another new year makes me want to live more passionately and make each moment count.
The best part about our church’s Ash Wednesday service is that it takes place at night. Perhaps because I am used to coming to church in the morning, night at church feels special. Instead of a sunlit sanctuary, with beams of light streaming through the tall West-facing windows, the church is dark, save for a few lights and candles. The only other time I am at church at night is Christmas Eve. But this feels different than Christmas Eve. There is more mystery for me in Lent. Christmas is familiar territory with the carols, the story of Jesus’ birth, the tree. Lent marks Jesus’ forty days in the desert when he prepared for his public ministry and faced various temptations. These events raise all kinds of questions: Why did Jesus’ need to be tempted? Why did he have to suffer and die? Why must we all suffer and die? These are questions that demand much thought and a submission to the mysteries of God. It’s good to consider these questions at least once a year.
Ash Wednesday has the feel of new beginnings, much like New Year’s. For me there is hope and excitement in contemplating a new beginning, and, like many people, I often make resolutions that don’t last. But these are always worthwhile experiments. This year for New Year’s I decided to try a new method of prayer every morning called Centering Prayer. It involves choosing a sacred word and meditating for about 20 minutes. I had some very peaceful sessions of meditation, but in the end I didn’t stick with it every day like I had hoped. Lent gave me another chance to try something new. Many people give up something but I never do that; perhaps I don’t want to fail. Instead, I try to add some new habit. This year I have decided to read a passage each morning from a book called “Finding Faith.” It is a collection of accounts of people who converted to Christianity. So far I’ve read about a drug addict who became a Christian and about Chuck Colson, the famous politician who worked in the Nixon administration and was sent to prison for his involvement in Watergate. He became a Christian and founded a well-known ministry to prisoners around the country that is still very vital today. This book seems an appropriate read as traditionally Lent is the time when new members of the church prepare for membership and/or baptism.
Living in California brings a special dimension to Lent. That’s because our spring has already arrived by the time Ash Wednesday is here. So, although Lent might encourage quiet reflection as we consider Jesus’ time in the desert and his ultimate sacrifice on Good Friday, it’s hard to be too somber with everything blooming outside. Cherry blossoms line the streets with their pink bursts of color and daffodils peek out in gardens. While the rest of the country lies buried under snow and ice, we are enjoying warm sunny days. Maybe it would be better if we celebrated Lent right after Christmas, when the days are shorter and spring has not yet sprung.
In any case, when I go to church next Sunday and the following Sundays before Easter, there won’t be flowers in the sanctuary and the gold cross on the altar will be covered in a black cloth. The black cloth will remind me of how I started this season, in the dark sanctuary on Ash Wednesday. The dark sanctuary, in turn, will remind me of the story of Nicodemus, one of the few, if only, accounts we have of someone coming to see Jesus at night. Why did Nicodemus seeks out Jesus at night? Perhaps he wanted more privacy. He did not want to contend with the crowds that surrounded Jesus during the day. Or maybe he was self-conscious because he was a member of the very group of people who Jesus condemned and he didn’t want to look bad in front of his fellow Pharisees. In that famous meeting, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be “born from above.” Nicodemus doesn’t understand this and wonders how he can be born a second time. Jesus explains that this means being born from water and the Spirit, in other words, involving baptism and the Holy Spirit. Jesus goes onto explain the most well-known verse of the New Testament, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” There is no tidy conclusion at the end of the night to indicate whether Nicodemus believed in Jesus. But Jesus’ words evidently had a strong impact on Nicodemus because later in the Bible we see Nicodemus defending Jesus in front of the Pharisees and later, after Jesus’ death he brings 100 pounds of spices with which to bury his body. I can’t imagine transporting 100 pounds of spices!
Maybe we should celebrate all services during Lent at night. Then the contrast with our service Easter morning would be even more extreme. Our joyful singing and celebration would seem even more exuberent after having celebrated for six weeks in the dark. In the end, I think Lent really is about contrasts, about dark and light, about belief versus unbelief, about winter and spring. In this sense, Lent is challenging because we have to hold opposite things together—the suffering of Jesus and the world, for example, with the promise of God’s love. Unlike Nicodemus in the night, however, Christians today know the end of the story. We know what happened after the cross and we have the accounts of faithful men and women through the centuries who have believed and lived exemplary lives. We also know that today, in our age of violence, terrorism and environmental disaster, we need God’s love, hope and beauty more than ever.