Rick Bennett, CBF’s Director of Missional Congregations, reflects on the church’s journey with Christ during the Lenten Season, in which we prepare for Christ’s invitation to an eternal life that occurs here and now.
Wednesday, February 22 is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent (or, as our Reformed friends more poetically speak – the Lenten Season). Growing up, I didn’t have a clue about Lent. My best friend was a marginal messianic Jew, and I didn’t know a single Catholic or Reformed Christian in the whole of Fruity Acres – our dirt-road neighborhood (think Swamp People). Still, I had a better chance of hearing about Lent in the neighborhood than I did at the Freewill Baptist church whose bus picked me up on Sundays. The church made more of people’s birthdays in worship than they did the seasons of the Christian calendar. The closest our tiny church came to following Jesus through the Seasons was Christmas (message: Jesus was born to die) and Easter (message: Jesus died a horrific death for you). In fact, in a faithful effort to “preach the cross,” Easter morning was more about Good Friday than it was about resurrection.
From this vantage, the shared journey of our congregation was only consistent with what we believed about salvation. The most important thing was that sinners be saved from eternal hell; the potential hellishness of this life (nor its remedy) was seldom if ever referenced. When Jesus said that he came that we might have life, and life abundant, he meant the life after this one…period. Jesus was all about eternal life, but that life only began at death. This seemed to be emphasized to the degree that Jesus had little or nothing to say about the possibility of living life to the full here and now. I wouldn’t have recognized that Jesus as the Son of God if he spoke to me – at least not the first time. I pondered these things in my heart, but that was the extent of my response.
As deeply grateful as I am to the varied and local traditions that pointed me toward Jesus, I’m even more thankful for discovering a Jesus whose invitation to life – abundant life – is now AND then. It is possible to enter into the life that Jesus describes even now! The Good News is that life is available here and now. Eternal life is the bonus that the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard. I learned these things from the Teacher as we walked together along the way made straight by the Christian calendar. In this way of keeping time, Jesus’ whole story is told, and he becomes real – Savior, yes, and Teacher more. I’m still responding. I’m still trusting that He who began (whenever and wherever and among whomever) a good work in me, will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus.
The journey with Jesus is never more poignant or formative than the Season of Lent. Anticipating death is certainly one of the deeper dimensions of living. Every year, he bids us come and die. Every year we journey together to Calvary. Along the way, we dream God’s resurrection dream. At some point, He goes on alone.