This past December, I came across
somebody’s Facebook post that caught my attention. Let me read it to you.
It said, “To the punk who tried to steal our Christmas lights last night…you
dropped your phone dummy while you were till logged into Facebook and didn’t
even have a lock on your phone…I’m not going to the cops if you come back and
let me talk to you…I’d rather just find out why and avoid putting someone in
jail for a failed attempt at theft.”
And then the guy writes this
in his post: “Here’s the profile link to
their Facebook…Does anyone know who this is??? I have a lot of friends who are
mutual friends with this person.” And then he provides the Facebook profile
link that you can click on to see who stole this guy’s lights.
I was reluctant to click on the link, but
I was curious to see who the guy was. I
remember thinking to myself, “I just got
to see who this fool is.” So I clicked the link and to my surprise, it was
a link to my own Facebook page! It looked like I was the guy who stole his
Christmas lights! In that split second, my heart sank.
And that’s when I realized that this whole
think was a joke because everyone who clicked on that link, was sent to their
own Facebook page, as if we were the ones who stole this guy’s Christmas
lights.
I laughed as I stared at my own profile. I
knew in that moment that this would make it into a future sermon and Ash
Wednesday seemed to be the most appropriate time to use this.
Rusian novelist and historian, Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn has said, “If only it were
all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing
evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and
destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of
every human being.”
Sometimes we need a season like Lent to
look carefully at our own profile and think about who we are and who God is calling us to
be. But it’s not always easy to look within for any length of time. It can be a
painful experience because we might not like what we see.
If we look at our profile, we might have
forgotten about our lack of forgiveness toward that person who harmed us, or
the gossip that we recently shared about someone we know, or the stranger who
asked for a few bucks to help him out and for whatever reason, we turned him
away, or how we didn’t keep a promise that we made, or when we could have been
more generous and instead gave the smaller amount.
The point is that we all need Ash
Wednesday and the season of Lent to look within ourselves and get right with
God.
Isn’t it amazing that we can buy a number
of things that help us to look outside of ourselves, but there really is
nothing that we can buy that can help us look inside our own souls?
Think about it. If we want to look at
something beyond ourselves, we can buy prescription glasses, binoculars, and telescopes.
But what is there that can help us look into our own souls?
The season of Lent reminds us that there is
something that can help us with that. It’s called prayer and confession.
John Wesley who was the founder of
Methodism was known for asking those early Methodists this very important
question, “How is it with your soul?” We probably don’t hear that question
enough. “How is it with you soul?”
Not, “how is your day going?” or “how’s
life?” but “how is it with your soul?”
This question encourages us to go deeper
in thinking about who we are, who God is, and where we are in our spiritual
journey. I know it’s a deep question, but it really is a game changer when we
ask that particular question of ourselves.
Lent helps us to plumb the depths of our inner
most being. Lent is what helps us to exercise our soul. And like any exercise
or activity that involves a muscle of our body that we typically don’t use, we
shouldn’t be surprised if we find ourselves a little sore after giving our
souls a little workout.
How is it with your soul? Think about the
possible answers in answering this question. Here are just a few examples.
“Well, to tell you the truth, right now I
feel really close in my walk with Christ, and I want it to continue.” Or this…
“Actually, I’m going through a time of
darkness in my life and it’s been really hard to feel God’s presence.” Or…
“I know that God has forgiven me for a
terrible thing that I did, but I just can’t forgive myself.” Or…
“I am just now realizing that I’m not
living life my fully. I’m just kind of going through the motions, like I’ve hit
a plateau. I want to take my faith to a whole new level.”
This is what you get when you ask the
“soul” question. You come face to face with the very core of your being.
Today marks the beginning of Lent, a stretch
of six weeks where we designate this time leading up to Easter as a time to
focus on this question, “How is it with our soul?” Lent is a long season, even
longer than it’s liturgical cousin, “Advent” which is a four week stretch.
These two seasons on the church calendar
have something in common. They both involve waiting. Not a passive waiting for
a baby to be born or for a tomb to be found empty. No, these seasons encourage
us to observe an active waiting. It’s a time for us to be alert, awake, alive.
Did I just come up with a future three point sermon?! I like that! Alert,
awake, alive.
Say that with me. “Alert – Awake – Alive!”
Remember when the disciples
were in the garden with Jesus and he had asked them to watch and pray while he
went off to pray by himself? And remember how they stayed awake that whole
night praying for him? Trick question. They didn’t. They fell asleep when Jesus
needed them the most.
That story reminds us that being alert,
awake, and alive is hard work. We need some time to live into that kind of
deeper faith journey. And this is why the church offers us this six week time
frame. One day won’t cut it. Not even one week. We need a whole season. We need
Lent.
One of the ways that the church can help
us think about the question, “how is it with your soul?” is by asking each
other that question in a small group setting.
Our church is blessed to have several
small groups to help us do this hard work. Our small groups will be meeting
every week during the Season of Lent. You’ll notice our small group listing in
the bulletin that includes the day, time, location, and name of the small group
facilitator for each of our small groups.
These groups aren’t designed to be bible
studies. They are designed to give each person the opportunity to think about
the question, “How is it with your soul,” based on the previous Sunday’s
worship theme which will be based on six different types of crosses that
Christians have used over the centuries. These crosses include the Latin Cross,
the Jerusalem Cross, the Celtic Cross, The Tau Cross, St. Andrew’s Cross, and
the Crucifix.
Our season of Lent focus on these six
types of crosses will help us dig deeper in our faith as we explore the
question, “How is it with our soul?”
And yes, this can be done alone as well as
in a small group since these questions are always printed at the bottom of
Sunday’s sermons that can be found on our church website. The advantage of
answering these questions in a small group is that we can encourage and learn
from each other.
In a few moments, we will be coming
forward to receive ashes on our forward as a reminder of our mortality and of
our dependence on God. The sign of the cross on our foreheads and sometimes on
our noses depending on how shaky my hand is, is a sign to the people we see the rest of the day that we
have just begun a holy journey.
It’s a journey that begins with the words,
“how is it with your soul,” but remember, this six week journey will also
conclude with these great words of good news making it all worth it.
And those words are...
“He is risen!”
