COVID_19 and Lent

I want to commend again to you the Bridgetown Daily podcast by John Mark Comer (or occasionally another of his church’s pastoral staff). They have been particularly insightful, encouraging and challenging. All are only around 5-7 minutes and are a wonderful supplement to your devotional time or just for you to enjoy. 

Out running this afternoon I heard yesterday’s (March 26) podcast and wanted to share some highlights. What follows is a redacted transcript. To hear the entire thing, - and I highly recommend you do so - go to bridgetown.church/series/bridgetown-daily/ or subscribe via your favorite podcast app.

He starts out saying,

“I find it very interesting that the COVID_19 shut down and the "shelter in place" comes to the west during the time period that we call Lent. Lent is the time in the church calendar when followers of Jesus remember that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. It starts with Ash Wednesday when followers of Jesus put the symbol of the cross on their forehead in ash to remember that line that will at some point be spoken over all of us at our grave: “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” To hold before our mind the reality that we are mortal. We are human. We get sick, and in the end we all die. All of us. The stats on death are pretty hard to argue with. 100%. …Human beings are mortal. We are made from the dust and we die.

And that reality is sad… Paul, in the New Testament called death, “the last enemy to be destroyed.” In his theology, Jesus is at war with death, and his resurrection was the decisive victory that one day will spread out to all of Jesus’ followers, and that is what we look forward to on Easter.

But the reality of death is sad,… but it's also liberating, and dare I say, invigorating. In Lent, we remember that we do not need to be afraid. And if we do not need to be afraid of death itself, that opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Kind of the best moments of the church [historically] have been when she was under pain of death, but not scared to give up her own life.

In Lent, we also remember that we need to redeem the time - to not squander our life on trivial things or how many hours a week can we give to video games, or Call of Duty, or online shopping, or endless chit chat, or our own egoistic pursuit of pleasure, or success, or money, or power, or fame, or experience, or more followers on Instagram, or whatever it is. Life is short. We are mortal. We live and then we die. It could be in a century; it could be in a day. We must live for what matters.

And so in Lent, followers of Jesus choose to give up some kind of a pleasure in order to let that abstinence do a kind of deep work in your soul of purging and purifying all of your attachments to the world… stripping you and I down to the bare essence of what life is all about in order to create more space in our budget, in our time, in our schedule, in our life, and above all in our soul, for the presence of God and the life of Jesus who is back from the dead.

But now here's the thing: We are all in lent now. The virus, shelter in place, the economic fallout, all of the uncertainty around the future, it's all a kind of lent a kind of abstinence - a kind of stripping down and purging and purifying our soul and our society. And this virus is an invitation to face reality and to meet God there. The reality that we are human, mortal, frail, vulnerable, susceptible to disease, not nearly as in control as we think. And that is okay.

He references C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters where Lewis makes the point that war (and by extension times of crisis that we currently face) break us out of what he calls “contented worldliness.” In times like this, nobody can believe that they are going to live forever.

“Again, the goal of this insight that we're mortal - that we die - is not fear at all. It's actually not scary for a follower of Jesus because we follow a rabbi who is back from the dead. The goal is rather to wake us up from that contented worldliness - from a kind of spiritual slumber or stupor. The idea that we are mortal - that we are made out of the dust that we die - need not make us morose. Actually, it's more likely to make us joyful, and grateful, and more present to the moment and alive in the marrow of our bones.

So to close,… remember that the body you're in right now, even if it's healthy and strong, it is dying. And one day it will come back from the dead. Feel the reality that you are mortal, that you live in time. Every minute every second is a precious gift. We don't take time - we don't “seize the day,” we receive the day as a gift from God. Not a right, but a gift to be alive. Today is a gift.

Remember that life is short. That it's meaningful and it's beautiful. That it's a gift that you're alive with Jesus, and you need not even fear death itself.”

 Great stuff. Peace be with you all!