The Lenten Walk

Why do we take the annual walk with Jesus through Lent?   I think the answer is that we need to remember.   Look at the book of Deuteronomy and you will read a long sermon by Moses.   It is about remembrance.   So much of the Old Testament speaks about the Israelites "getting it wrong" by forgetting what God had done for them in love.   They were given the high status title of "chosen people" which, one might have thought, would have helped them to keep in their memory what the love of God had achieved for them.   But, no matter how amazing, it seems that no great deed of salvation remains strong in the mind.

 

When Moses left the people to climb the mountain and be given the ten commandments it was only a short time before the people became restless and leaned on Aaron to give them a graven image to worship.   They had been pursued by the Egyptian army and had crossed the Red Sea as if it were dry land.   God struck the Egyptians and they drowned in their pursuit.   But the people soon forgot this.   At the end of his life, Moses addressed the people and reminded them why they ought to be remembering how God had shown his love for them so often in their immediate history.

 

Later we hear the prophets in their efforts to get the people to remember and respond.   All through there is this theme of Israel leaving the "prepared path" and doing their own thing.   They saw other religions arising through the marriage of  their leaders to foreigners who had different ways of expressing religion.   Some of the religious practices were very attractive to them and they succumbed and drifted away from God.   So, what is new?

 

Turn to the New Testament and see the same old ways happening again.   Initially, there was the impact of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but this was followed by the same old drift away.   But look at that journey to Jerusalem to a destination involving cruelty, torture and slow death.   It was a terrible journey to make for Jesus.   But it was a necessary journey if God's will was to be done.   The end of the story, which is the start of another, brings God and humankind into a conflict which could only be won by God.   Over a period of three days we see the victory by the people when Jesus died and the victory of God in the resurrection of Jesus.

 

So, today we walk the walk with Jesus again to remember that act of love by God where he allowed his Son to be put to death on a cross before joyously raising him on the third day.   For me, the big memory embedded in this walk is that, each day, as we go forward, we see the waiting cross on the horizon.   It reminds us why we are taking this walk.

 

"God so loved the world that he gave his only Son"!   What a gift!