LAST MONTH’S COLUMN was a fairly giddy look at the custom of giving up things for Lent: things we give up, practices we add on, and so forth. This month, though, I want to look at part of that list again, but this time more seriously.
Our days are getting longer, but the Lenten season gets darker.
Partially, the day lengthens because of Daylight Saving Time, and partially because, well, that is what happens in spring as the world moves to summer. (Is it just me, or does “Spring Ahead” get harder and “Fall Back” more luxuriant each passing year?)
The texts we read at church and online, though, they are definitely getting darker, especially since this year’s cycle, centered on Luke, is rapidly moving toward Jerusalem and Jesus’ crucifixion, and then, thank God, the resurrection that gives us hope.
So, let’s revisit that list:
1. What we give up — the A-word.
2. What we add on — prayers and laments.
Generally, Christianity done right is not a doom-and-gloom religion, it’s just not. That’s the kind of Christianity I grew up with and it was grim, very hard for a young queer boy who tried, tried hard, tried so very hard not to be, forcing me to choose between my religion and my God-given sexuality.
But when I discovered a more progressive form of Christianity, I added what we call the A-word in Lent, since we stop saying “a-l-l-e-l-u-i-a” for this season (Shhhh!).
I was, as C. S. Lewis once put it in his book title, “Surprised by Joy,” more than by happiness and far more than by satisfaction.
I found a congregation in my hometown of Chicago that was just full of joy, as my current congregation is now.
Now, though, it’s time to settle down: while Christianity is always joyous, the joy shifts from shouting aloud and singing hymns with trumpets and the great big pipes of the organ.
Instead, we chant and sing in minor keys. I had a little taste of Easter yesterday as I served at a funeral. The color was no longer purple but white; there were flowers on the altar; the music was in major keys; even in the service’s quieter moments, we celebrated the new life of our dead, and yes, we said ALLELUIA in the face of death.
It wasn’t the time to wait patiently as we do in Advent, on our journey to Christmas, or to reflect on our sins, as we do from Lent to Easter. No, it was time to celebrate a life well lived, a victory won, as Saint Paul reminds us.
But now, in my parish, it’s time to put on purple again, to take away the flowers, to put stones and sticks on the altar, to open our hearts to God. And so we add on quiet and prayers, and even laments.
At Maundy Thursday, we say together Psalm 51 (Have mercy on me, O God, / according to your steadfast love…”) as we strip the altar of everything, book, candles, all the linens and we go down to the basics: a bare table, at last removing the consecrated bread and wine and snuffing out the eternal flame.
There is no light, not then, not when Christ is absent. And the next day, Good Friday, is one of our two fast days (the other is Ash Wednesday, when we remember our own deaths).
We will confront an empty table and a bare cross. For we will have lost Christ, we won’t know where he is and we will be fully in the empty places of our lives. No wonder we lament, no wonder we, too, wonder where God is.
All the lovely gaudy things we love? Removed. Silenced. Gone, not forgotten, but absent. For now.
But then Easter comes.
We wait now, but soon we will again shout out with all our might and, yes, joy, and go back to celebrating the love of God in our lives.
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Issues of Faith is a rotating column by religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. The Rev. Dr. Keith Dorwick is a Deacon at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Port Angeles/St. Swithin’s Episcopal Church, Forks.
