For a long time in the church's history, Lent was a time of severe deprivation. No wine, olive oil, meat or sugar. No eggs, no dairy, everything was pulled back. In these last days, though, we tend to want to just give up a little bit. Just a smidge. Just a touch. Give up facebook or twitter, give up chocolate or sweets, but apart from that, business as usual. Well not this year. This year it's all gone, pretty much your entire life. For the first time, maybe ever for you, you can't just go to the store and get what you want. either the store is closed, or what you want is out of stock. You have given up your weekly coffee shop, your trip to the salon, and the nail studio. You've had to give up contact with family and friends, beer after work and trips to the gym. It has all gone.
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That's tough to hear. It's tough to hear and to contemplate the idea that you're going to be without things as usual. And for a lot of us, we may get to thinking that maybe it would be better to have not had these things than to leave them now. But that's off on the wrong foot. 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, you know. But how best do we navigate this long dusk, this twilight? How do we move through what is seen by most of us as this night that we are in right now?
Well, it's lent. And if it's lent, you get to think about what it has been like for the church for thousands of years for Lent. One of the first pieces of evidence for giving something up for Lent goes back to AD 203, where St. Irenaeus wrote to Pope Victor I that there was a dispute between the eastern and western churches as to how long the fast should last, and ended the letter by saying "Such variation in the observance did not originate in our own day, but very much earlier, in the time of our forefathers.
Isn't that a trip, that back in 203 people were talking about Christian practices that were happening in the days of their forefathers? So the church has been fasting for a long time, and gradually, our fasting has gotten weaker and weaker, until today, when you're giving up everything, and are being defined by what you're not doing, rather than by what you are. And that's new for us. We're not used to it. And this is where the man born blind from our reading comes into it.
This man born blind is identified by the disciples, singled out, pointed to, and they say to Jesus 'who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' And for us, this is where we are at right now. Like that man born blind, we are defined by what we don't have, by what we can't do. We are defined by what cannot happen, by what cannot be done. We, in this time of quarantine, see ourselves as limited, and constrained. And stories of healing are especially important for us to hear now. They're important for us to hear because of what they represent.
Jesus doesn't just heal people because he's a nice guy, or because he wants to improve the condition of the humans of earth. Rather, every healing, every miracle is a reversal of the curse that humans were under from the time of Adam and Eve onwards. When Adam and Eve were justly barred from paradise, the darkness began. Sin entered the world, through sin, death, and the light that they had seen in the Garden was gone. There was sin, there was death, there was disease. Viruses and bacteria began to attack, and decay broke in. From that point onwards, nothing would work the way it should, and things would fall apart. You are here.
And when the disciples ask who sinned, Jesus responds 'Neither this man no his parents sinned, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.' This is a chance for the work of God to be evident. When Jesus heals the man born blind, there is unbelievable gratitude, given that this man returns to a normal that he didn't know existed. He didn't know what sight was, not really, and got to see for the first time thanks to the grace of God. In Lent right now, you know what you want to get back to, more than ever. But what you may have forgotten is the bigger picture of Lent and Easter altogether. You likely have forgotten about the great Lent that we are in right now, and the great Easter that awaits.
This time is a time of fasting and deprivation, more than you'd expected I'm sure. But it will end. Every Lent ends, and I want you to think very hard about what all the Easters have been like for you . You know that feeling when you walk back into church after Good Friday, once the church is bedecked in white and the hymns of praise ring out? You know that feeling where the joy is palpable, where it's all you can do to keep from embracing those around you? You know that feeling that comes from singing "I know that my Redeemer lives" loud and excitedly, knowing what this season means?
Now imagine what it will be like to be back in worship with the full family of God, standing shoulder to shoulder with those whom you love? That's the day you want to wake up to. Will it happen here? I'm not sure. I hope so, but it's in God's hands. But you're not worshiping a God who exists and works only in this world. You're worshiping a God who is active in eternity. You're worshiping a God who is in control of the entirety of heaven and earth, who stands outside the turmoil that breaks us and the tumults that trouble us. And if you read through the scriptures beginning to end, you will find that they end the same way they begin. They end with human beings getting back to normal, living in the day of God, standing shoulder to shoulder in praise and thanksgiving again, following the resurrection. In the true and everlasting Easter. They get back to the state that humans were in from the beginning.
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying 'God's home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people, God himself will be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever."
That's not anything new, novel or different. That's back to the way things should have been from the beginning. When Lent ends and Easter begins, it's a foretaste of how things should be forever, and always should have been. Think closely on this during this time of fasting and deprivation. And when Easter hits, whether here or in the Easter to come, rejoice over what Christ has done, not just beating blindness in one man, but beating death for us all.
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