Sermon by the rev'd. Pamela Snare

Sermon
March 4, 2007
The Reverend Pamela Snare

[Jesus] said…”Go and tell that fox… ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” (Luke 13:32-33)

In today’s gospel, Jesus is making his way to Jerusalem. It is in Jerusalem that he will face his greatest trial of remaining faithful to his father and to the mission with which he has been entrusted. A mission of showing, enfleshing the love which the Father has for the world, for you and for me. With no other defense than the Father’s love, he will face and absorb all the evil that ever has been and all the evil that ever will be, concentrated like beams of a laser in every direction upon his person. He will have to trust, in total darkness and blindness, that the Father is beside him and will deliver him, from the cross to the resurrection, from death to life.

Today we are invited to accompany him, to take that journey with him, from the cross to the resurrection, from death to life. And not only to take that journey with him, but to see how our life journeys intersect with his own – to see our life journeys in the light of his own.

The orthodox theologian, Alexander Schmemann, calls Lent “a bright sadness,” and a dear friend of mine calls it a “sorrowful joy.” They mean by this, I think, in terms of Jesus’ life, that we cannot contemplate the cross without remembering the resurrection; and in terms of our own lives, we cannot view our difficulties, hardships, sorrows, sicknesses, deaths, except as passages through which the Father will also bring us to new life. Jesus’ life journey to the cross and the resurrection, to the Father’s house, to the arms of God, is a paradigm of our life journeys to that final resting place, to the arms of God. Or, as St. Paul says in today’s epistle, “But our citizenship is in heaven and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Where are you on your life’s journey, as it intersects with Jesus’ own? Perhaps you, too, are on the way to Jerusalem. You see, in front of you, in the not too distant future, a difficulty, sickness, suffering, a trial and you are preparing yourself to live through it, with patience, endurance, perseverance.

Do not forget to take Jesus with you. Or rather, remember that he is with you, by your side, carrying you. He knows hardship; he knows sorrow; he knows suffering. He is your companion.

Or perhaps you are, even now, hanging on the cross. Your pain and suffering, the evil that you are experiencing, is such that you feel the absence of God. He seems distant, perhaps even not there. You feel disconnected, alone, deserted. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? And are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?” Jesus is with you, too. He has taken into himself forever and for all time that felt sense of abandonment, of being distant, even disconnected from the Source of life and love. He knows the estrangement we feel from God because of sin and evil. Know that he is with you in your darkness and your blindness. He was there long before and he will see you through.

Or maybe it is that you are in the tomb. You have just passed through a difficulty, a sickness, a death, a trial. You are weary, and you are waiting for signs of new life. The worst appears to be over, but you do not, cannot see what the future holds. You are between times, still in the darkness of the tomb, awaiting a ray of light, to show you the way, to indicate where you are to go from where you are now. Jesus is there, too. Waiting in trust, waiting in hope. Waiting in God’s good time for the stone to be rolled away, for the light to enter, for the next step on your journey to be made clear.

And it could be that you have emerged from the tomb. That you are in a new phase of new life. That the God in whom you have trusted has realized his promises in your life. He has shown you the way to a new place, a new job, a new school, a new stage in your life which is richer and better and fuller and freer than where you were before. You are a new person, and you are thankful, and you are certain of God’s goodness, and you trust God’s fidelity. You know that you are who you are and where you are, not because of your worthiness, or ability or ambition, but because God is your helper and he has brought you where you are and he has made you who you are.

Where are you on your life’s journey? Perhaps you are not in one of these places but in several. Perhaps you alternate between abandonment and hope; between sorrow and joy; between fear and faith. But in all of these places, the Lord is near. He is near because in his life’s journey, he traveled to all of these places himself.

I want to share with you where I am, or more accurately, where my husband, Jerry and I are, and where it seems to me our parish is. We are between times, in a period of waiting, like Jesus in the tomb. We have experienced the death of Father (now Bishop) John’s departure. There is grief associated with that death. We are waiting an unknown future. We do not know who will be the next rector of Christ Church. We do not know exactly what the future holds.

To those who have asked, I have told them that I will not remain on the staff of the new rector. I have thought about this and prayed about this, and from having served in a parish where this happened, I know that it is not healthy for the parish, for the new rector, or for the assistant to stay. So, I will be leaving, not tomorrow, not next month, or the month after, but at some point down the road. I don’t know when, exactly. So, Jerry and I are between times, too, and we don’t know what the future holds, or where God will lead us. About that, we are in the dark.

But this is what we do know. On the other side of the tomb, the waiting, the unknown, there is new life. For us, and for the parish of Christ Church. And we know that God will lead us where he wants us to be; that even now, he is preparing a way for us, and he is preparing a way for Christ Church. Today, even now, he is making the connections and laying the foundation for new life to be breathed into our lives and into the life of Christ Church. The stone will be rolled away from the tomb, and new life will burst forth. And this is true not only for us and for Christ Church, but for your own life as well.

That is why Lent is a “bright sadness,” a “sorrowful joy.” Because however profound our darkness, however deep our sorrow, however long our waiting, we already know, my friends, what awaited Jesus and what awaits us on the other side of the tomb. “Therefore, my beloved, stand firm in the Lord; for all things are yours…and all belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.” (Philippians 4:1b; 1 Corinthians 3:22b-23)

The Reverend Pamela P. Snare

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