Church of the Incarnation

Joel warns, "a great and powerful army" 1 is coming after us. Can't you hear the hoofbeats? It's the sound of those around you losing their jobs - and wondering when you'll be the one holding the pink slip. The thudding grows louder with each round of layoffs. Can't you see the dust swirling around the horses' hooves? It's the dust of financial worries - how will we make it without one income? Is there enough left in our retirement to live on? And what if the car dies or we have to have surgery - can we cover it? The dust stings our eyes and constricts our breathing. The army fills the horizon and stretches as far as we can see. We can't sell the house and live off the equity, because nobody's buying houses. And we've already cut back as far as we know how. We're outnumbered by thousands. We're helpless and defenseless and have nowhere to turn. This is the "day of darkness and gloom,"2 the "day of clouds and thick darkness." 3 What is there to do but howl our despair and rend our garments with the grief of it all?

"Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing."4 Rend our hearts? Aren't our hearts rent enough by all this? How many sleepless nights does God require?

It's not that God requires us to suffer. Quite the opposite. God wants us to live in perfect peace. But God also knows why the approaching army causes our blood pressure to soar and keeps us awake in our beds. It's because we've come to rely too much on our own abilities, we've come to believe that we can care for ourselves. We've strayed from God.

We've come to put our trust in jobs and banks and medicine, in our own ability to meet our needs. We've come to believe that these momentary hardships are of lasting importance. We've placed ourselves at the center. We've forgotten that we are dust, momentary, fleeting, carried away by the slightest breeze. We've forgotten that the whole span of our life is but a breath. We've forgotten that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves. We've forgotten that all we have and all we are is God's gracious gift.

But we've also forgotten that God is solid rock, like our limestone out front: firmly planted in the ground, immovable and permanent. We've forgotten that if God is for us, no army in the world can harm us.5 We've forgotten that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor economy, nor job market, nor waning health, nor family problems, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 6

That's why I invite you to a holy Lent: not because we all need a good grovel every now and then, but because true peace comes when we remember that God is God and we are not. Trues peace comes when we put our whole faith and trust not in ourselves, not in our own ability to help ourselves, but in the one who made us, who loved us enough to become one of us, and who redeemed us on the cross.

And so, I invite you to the observance of a holy Lent.

References:

1. Joel 2:2.
2. Joel 2:2.
3. Joel 2:2.
4. Joel 2:12.
5. Romans 8:31.
6. Romans 8:38-9.