Lenten Reflection, Feb 13, 2008 (Sean Johnson)

Death and Resurrection

C.S. Lewis said, "God is the only comfort . . . he is also the Supreme Terror; the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible Ally and we have made ourselves His enemy."

Lent is traditionally a time for reflection, self-examination and repentance. This year, our Lenten focuses on death and resurrection. We have been challenged by Pastor Jane to ask ourselves what legacy we would leave and how that legacy is informed by our faith.

The lesson tonight is from Isaiah 25:6-8: [read from the lectionary sheet together]

6 On this mountain the Lord will prepare a feast of rich food for all people,
a banquet of aged wine-the best of meats and the finest of wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all people,
the sheet that covers all nations.
8 He will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears from all faces;
He will remove his people's disgrace from all the earth.

During last Sunday's forum Libby Goldstein discussed some ideas as to what was going on in Isaiah, one of the pivotal books from the Bible that we look to today, often referred to as the "Fifth Gospel." Libby pointed out that Jews tend to think of Isaiah as speaking of the role that the nation of Israel would play; Christians typically think of Isaiah as foretelling the coming of Jesus. In this verse from Isaiah for tonight, God makes a series of promises. Some might think these promises from Isaiah refer to something that might happen in the afterlife, in heaven, or at "judgment day." As Christians, are we waiting only to get our reward in heaven, or at some second coming?

I have always believed that living life here and now is important and that promises like these are somehow part of our present being and offer a lesson. So I have tried to see this series of promises in terms of what they bring to our lives today:

1. The first promise from today's lesson is that in a high place, the Lord will prepare a feast of rich food for all people. Imagine that Isaiah was foretelling the miracle of the life of Jesus and his life on earth.

Didn't Jesus, throughout his ministry and at his death, through his great compassion, leave for us a rich feast in the Eucharist we partake of together each week? What could be richer than the bread and blood of the sacrament and the community it brings between us!

2. The second promise God makes in the lesson tonight is to destroy the shroud that enfolds all people and the separation of all nations.

How can God unite us, but through compassion? It is through the compassion and example of Jesus that we come here as Christians today. In Jesus we have a mirror of God's nature, which is twofold:

1. God is love (1 John 4:16-18)
2. God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

There is no darkness in God. God's "wrath" then, can be thought of as a turning away from darkness. This demands that we, too, are to turn away from darkness. How do we turn from darkness and embrace light and love? How do we develop our own compassionate natures and our capacity for love?

Maybe the secret lies in the recesses we make in our lives for reflection and in the choices we make in our daily, ordinary world. This assumes we make time for reflection, which brings us again to this season of Lent, a time traditionally set aside for contemplation.

But in today's world-who has time for reflection? Well, you may be surprised to learn-- happy people make time for meditation and reflection, according to at least one scientist:

Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D., runs the University of Wisconsin at Madison's Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience. This neuroscientist and professor of psychology has been working to uncover the architecture of emotion and what makes folks happy (or not). Along with other groups of people, Davidson studied a group of Tibetan monks who had years of meditation experience, adding them to a collection of "brain maps" he has accumulated. He has worked with his friend, Jon Kabat-Zinn, who has written many books and is the director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Together they found that people who meditate are not only able to decrease anxiety and boost their moods, but they strengthen their immune systems in the process.

Dr. Davidson's studies also show that people who meditate to increase compassion have created dramatic change in 2 areas of the brain:

1. The area that floods people with feelings of well-being, and
2. The areas involved in motor planning-indicating that people who meditate to increase compassion not only feel better, but are filled with the energy to jump up an act on compassionate feeling.

So it seems that the second promise of this verse in Isaiah was fulfilled, or at least initiated, through the life of Jesus. Jesus left us with a challenge to live our own lives in a compassionate way and to assist in making the promise to heal separation among people a reality. We can start this Lenten season through making space for reflection in our lives and by intentionally increasing our capacity for compassion.

The third promise we heard in the lesson is that God will swallow up death forever.

There is something about our lives that seems invincible, something that surely survives our physical deaths. This is the idea and essence of what happened with the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross.

When I was young, I didn't understand why Jesus had to die on the cross. Wasn't there some other way? It seemed cruel that Jesus died for us.

But as I grew through my own sorrows and transitions in life, I looked at Jesus' crucifixion with new eyes. I found solace in a God who would sacrifice to that extent for me. There is a strange comfort in Jesus' dying and in his resurrection. This is a wonderful metaphor for the chasm and great separation we suffer in our imperfect lives as humans.

Isn't it the pain of separation and the idea of being unloved or alone that initiates all suffering? And is not love and compassion the means with which we put things right again? Just like Mother Goose's Humpty Dumpty, we can sit on a wall, fall off, and be smashed to pieces. But with love, we can put ourselves and others back together again.

The final promise from tonight's lesson is that God will wipe away all tears from all faces and remove disgrace from all peoples.

God sent his son Jesus into the world to live and die as a human. To be tempted in the same way we are tempted and to abide in the true nature of God-- in light and love-is our challenge. Through Christ's Death and Resurrection we are healed and our tears fall away. Our disgrace becomes grace, not through our own efforts, but through faith in what we cannot see, but can only sense. This heals our separation not only from God and others, but from ourselves, from ourselves as God wishes us to be.

Last Sunday's lesson began Lent with a drama of salvation history: Adam and Eve disobedient to God in the Garden of Eden paralleling the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. The different result, obviously, is that Jesus resists the temptation to use his spiritual power for the wrong purpose and, instead, continues to walk as he knows God directs him. Jesus is said to be the "new Adam" becoming our chance to start over. This wipes away our tears and our disgrace.

Our failure to listen to God and follow in the way of love separates us from the lives that God meant us to have. Alone, we can do nothing to change our lives. Our sinfulness casts us out-God's gift of Jesus reopens the door to paradise.

The love of God through Jesus offers us a way home and an end to our tears and separation.

If I were to leave a legacy, it would be in small acts of everyday kindness to leave the world a more compassionate place than I found it. It is a legacy that has already been left to me by others throughout my life.

And that legacy would be informed by the faith I have found in love itself and its transformative properties that have the capacity to heal us and make us more whole at every turn.

I'll leave you with this meditation for compassion:

A MEDITATION

To all whom I love and admire:
May we be free of pain and sorrow. May we be well and happy.

To all whom find difficult:
May we be free of pain and sorrow; may we be well and happy.

To all whom I pass, especially those I don't know at all:
May we be aware of each other's presence and
May we be free of pain and sorrow; may we be well and happy.

May you be well and at Peace,