March is upon us. Some of us thought it would never get here. The snow has been depressing to many. We wondered, when is it ever going to stop, and yet what a wonderful introduction to Spring and to the season of Lent.
Just as Lent is a time of repentance, of reflection and introspection, the snow reminds us “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. (Isaiah 1:18)
Throughout the season of Lent, we’ll be looking at the iPhoto album of Jesus. What wonderful snapshots we see when we explore the gospels and see Jesus interacting with those who were outcasts, lonely, frustrated, and dejected.
I want to challenge you to get involved in a Lenten small group of 2-3 individuals and spend time reflecting on the passages which will be the basis of our messages. It might be 2-3 families who get together but wherever and whenever you meet, why not give it a try. There will be a weekly bulletin insert, which can help guide you through this process. It doesn’t have to be long. A half-hour to hour depending on how your group would be structured is sufficient.
The Psalmist said, “Consider the love of God…” (Psalm 107) The Apostle Paul said, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33) God’s love is deep enough to come from highest heaven and to reach the lowliest of sinners.
In 1914, British explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew took a ship to Antarctica. Their plan was to land, walk across Antarctica, cross over the South Pole, and continue all the way across. The plan had to be abandoned because their ship, the Endurance, got caught in polar ice and was crushed.
Over the following months they fought to stay alive. One of his biographers said that of all the difficulties they faced—including starvation and frigid temperatures—the worst thing was darkness. Near the South Pole, the sun goes down in mid-May and doesn’t come up until late July. There’s no daylight—no sunlight—for more than two months.
Darkness! It can drive people mad. You can’t see forward and you can’t see behind you. You have no direction. You can’t even see yourself. You don’t know what you look like. You can’t tell who is around you, whether they’re friend or foe.
It brings disorientation and confusion.
So, too, does spiritual darkness. Spiritual darkness comes when we turn away from God as our true light and make something else the center. You see, we were made to orbit around God.
When we are in spiritual darkness, however, we may feel our life is headed in the right direction, but we are wildly disoriented. If anything is more important to us than God, we have a problem with direction.
We lose our identity. We become isolated.
Lent is a time to refocus, to reorient ourselves to the cross.
The first person to get reoriented around the cross was a Roman centurion! His confession as he witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus was, “Surely, this man was the Son of God.” A centurion! A Roman soldier. A hardened man who had seen hundreds put to death.
All throughout his life people had been asking, “Who is this man?” The centurion now got it.
He heard Jesus’ cry and saw how He died. Surely, he saw the character, the love of Jesus shining through the darkness, and it flooded him with light, with the love of God.
I think of the gospel song:
Twas a life filled with aimless desperation
Without hope walked the shell of a man;
Then a hand with a nailprint stretched downward,
Just one touch then a new life began.
The chorus says,
And the old rugged cross made the difference
In a life bound for heartache and defeat;
I will praise Him forever and ever
For the cross made the difference for me.
This is our message to the world today, and it is God’s message to you. The cross is God’s provision for your sin. If you go to the cross, you will find your way home to God. That’s what Lent is about. That’s what the gospel is about.