Our Limits and Our Hope

Readings:
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/292/5E148954-9828-244D-9C6E-8E9FF6364E43.mp3

In what was reported to be the worst snowstorm of an already long and cold winter, churches all over southeastern Wisconsin cancelled their Ash Wednesday services this week. On what was arguably one of the coldest days of that same winter, we at Mt. Zion Lutheran Church met for weekly service and celebration to join, for the first time, the distribution of ashes and the celebration of the Eucharist. For what may perhaps be a once in a lifetime happening, we were about to experience what Pastor Mohn termed “a profound confluence”.

Not only a reminder of our limits, but …
At the same time, a reminder of our hopes.

In the Gospel today, the telling of the story of temptation serves to remind us we are often and continually tempted to:

(1) Lead an easier life … often at the expense of others
(2) Show off or boast … whether it be something as different as our faith or our worldly possessions
(3) Grab as much power as we can muster … after all “Who better to run the store than ourselves?”

But, ultimately, the story of the temptation of humans is not that interesting. Because it always has the same ending. They give in.

It begins in Eden. We’ve been trying to “be God” ever since. The story always ends in death. The ashes we have placed on our foreheads today remind us of that eventual (and unavoidable) destination.

So why get up on the coldest day of the year and go to church to hear I’m going to die?

Because the ending of Christ’s story changes the end of all of our stories – and for the better. The ashes remind us of our death. They are traced out in a cross, a reminder of our hope, our redemption, a victory over death won for us by Jesus’ sacrifice.

Pastor Mohn told a remarkable story of an Ash Wednesday service she and Erik attended when she was in seminary. She said she watched a little boy walking up to receive ashes near the Baptismal font. When the child approached, he said “Over or under?” Wjen his Mom asked “ … over or under what?”, his reply was “Does the water go over or under the ashes?”

Pastor Mohn had a unique insight to what she called a most profound question … posed by a child. Do the ashes that are a reminder of death go above … or below … the water that reminds us of our redemption? She did not know the answer. The child asks the profound question … Does the eventuality of death loom over and cloud the hope or does the hope rise above and vanquish the unavoidable death?

We were reminded today that God is present in the apparent tension between things that seemingly can’t be held together. In an essay published in Esquire magazine near the end of his life, F. Scott Fitzgerald observed:

“ … the test of being fully alive in the world is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in one’s mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should be able to see that things are ultimately hopeless, and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

Mortality and, yet, hope

The trespass and, yet, the free gift

Today is about reminders. Today we experienced a remarkable and profound confluence of opposing realities. There is inevitably death and, yet, in a sacrifice owned by Jesus, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked by God, there is, as Emily Dickinson so eloquently penned, “the thing with feathers” … hope.

And God is present in the tension.