SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18 2024 - LENT & LAMENT
February 18, 2024
Deborah Laforet
Lent & Lament
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by
your Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
When we talk about baptism in the church, we imagine babies. Traditionally, families
bring in their small children to be blessed and baptized and celebrated within their community of
faith. Once in a while we do encounter an adult or a teenager who has not been baptized and
asks for this sacred sacrament, but it’s rare. Baptism is usually seen as cute and cuddly and
warm and gentle.
In our story today, Jesus is baptized. He’s about 30 years old and he is baptized by a man
who has never cut his hair, is clothed in camel’s hair and a belt around his waist, eats honey and
locusts, and yells at people to repent and be forgiven of their sins. We might still see Jesus’
baptism as warm and gentle, as the Spirit, like a dove, comes down on Jesus as he comes up out
of the water and a voice is heard that says, “You are the Chosen One, my Beloved. With you I am
well pleased.” But in the very next sentence we read that this same Spirit immediately drives
Jesus into the wilderness where he stays for 40 days and 40 nights and is tempted by Satan. We
usually expect cake after a baptism.
For Jesus, the day of his baptism was the day he was committing to his ministry. It was
the day he accepted his call, was acknowledged by the Divine, and then driven into the
wilderness to test that call. Maybe you think this is an event that only happens to holy people
like Jesus, that being tested in the wilderness and tempted by Satan is a story in our bible that
happened a long time ago, that temptations and wilderness struggles are only for Messiahs.
I am willing to bet that everyone in this room has been tested in some way or another. I
am willing to bet that we have all spent time in the wilderness. In the anthem we heard from our
choir, “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home.” We’ve all been there
too. Some of us may be there now. Hardship is never far away. The next trial is always just
behind the next door we open.
I’m not saying this so that you’ll lose hope of an end to struggle, or so that you’ll leave
church wondering why you went today. Church is supposed to be uplifting and inspirational and
make you feel good when you leave. I also think church is about truth telling. We can’t pretend
that we don’t struggle. I know people here who struggle with anxiety, depression, stress, grief,
loneliness, physical, emotional, or spiritual pain. Church is a place where we feel joy and where
we celebrate the love of God, but it also needs to be a place where we can lament, where we can
cry out our anguish, where we can grieve, and through it all feel supported, and cared for, and
feel like we are not alone, that others go through the same struggles, different but the same.
A couple of months ago, I was struggling. I won’t go into why I was struggling except to
say that it had to do with this community’s relationship with the regional church and some
triggers. I was stressed; I was grieved; I felt like I had been betrayed by my church. It was also
almost Christmas and there were a lot of other pressures and expectations of being joyful and
cheerful during that holiday time.
During a lunch with other local clergy, one person came up to me and said that there
seemed to be a heaviness around me, and that if I wanted to talk later, he would be there to listen.
I took him up on that offer and after everyone had gone, I poured my heart out and had a bit of a
cry. It didn’t make the feelings go away. I didn’t instantly feel better, but I felt just a touch
lighter and felt heard and cared for.
In our gospel reading, after the baptism, after being driven into the wilderness, and after
being tempted by Satan, we are told, “the angels waited on him.” We are told the same in the
gospel of Matthew. After Jesus is driven into the wilderness to be tested and after Satan leaves
him, “suddenly angels came and waited on him.” Who were these angels? Were they the
mythical kind who live in heaven and have wings, or were they regular people who happened
upon an exhausted and famished person in need of care?
We seem to have this image of Jesus, after this time in the wilderness and after being
tempted, walking back into Galilee, refreshed and ready, and proclaiming the kingdom of God to
all who would listen. I wonder though if there was some time in between when Jesus
experienced healing, being tended by those angels, nourished and supported, held and loved.
We all need time to heal when we are struggling. We all need space to drop the mask, to
not feel the need to smile and be fine, space to grieve, be angry, be sad, and time to seek help, to
be held, and to heal. And hopefully, as we do this, angels will wait up on us, supporting us
through every step.
We are in the season of Lent, a time for introspection, a time of going inward, inside
ourselves, and evaluating who we are and how we live our faith. Easter is coming, but life can’t
always be about the Easters and we can’t pretend that every day is Easter. We have to get
through Good Friday in order for there to be an Easter. We have to walk through the wilderness
of Holy Saturday, before we can approach the relief and joy of resurrection.
So our focus during Lent is lament. Each week, we’ll look focus on a word that begins
with a letter from the word lament. Today, it’s simply L for Lament.
We will also be singing some spirituals, most attributed to from African-Americans,
lamenting their captivity and longing for freedom. Our choir sang one this morning, and we are
now going to sing one. Last year, when I was in Minneapolis for a preaching conference, I heard
a sermon by a preacher, named Luke Powery, Dean of Duke University Chapel & Associate
Professor of Homiletics at the Divinity School. He led us through singing a spiritual called,
“There Is a Balm in Gilead.” It was beautiful. The church was full and everyone was singing.
One of these Sundays, I will share that clip with you.
My challenge to us over the next few weeks will be to learn this song and the harmonies.
Today, we’ll only sing the melody, but for the next few weeks, we’ll also learn some harmonies
and by Palm Sunday, we’ll sing all these parts together and create a beautiful sung lament.
Because laments are not only bleak, and sad, and painful and sorrowful. They can also be
a relief, an inspiration, they can touch our hearts, and they can be beautiful. Expressing the
whole range of human emotion is good for us. It’s healthy, it’s healing, it’s hard and it’s painful,
and it’s comforting, beautiful and wonderful.
May you find those spaces where you can express your full range of emotions. May we
create those spaces where others can express their full range of emotions. And when we are
driven into the wilderness, when we are tested by Satan, when we are tired, hungry, and in need
of care, may angels come and wait upon us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Mark 1:9-15
(Introduce yourself.)
For the season of Lent, we will continue reading from Mark’s gospel, and today we’ll return to
the beginning. Mark’s gospel tends to be succinct; some people love that it focuses on Jesus’
actions and others prefer gospels with a bit more explanation. In just six verses that I will read
today, you will hear Jesus be baptized, tempted in the desert, and announce his ministry. I’m
reading verses nine to fifteen from chapter one.
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the
Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the
Spirit descending like a dove upon him. 11 And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my
Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness
forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God 15 and
saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the
good news.”
May God grant us understanding of our sacred text. Amen.