Christ is still risen. Are you still celebrating?

It was easy to be filled with the hope and joy of Easter this past Sunday morning. Especially after not being able to gather for worship at all on Easter in 2020, there was something extra celebratory regarding Easter this year. The purple of Lent turns to the white of Easter. The music is uplifting. The church is full. The lilies were in bloom. The alleluias return and we join in the church wide proclamation, “He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” There is an extra level of energy and excitement found in the church on Easter Sunday.

But now a few days after Easter, is the joy fading? It seems almost inevitable that the Easter enthusiasm will begin to wilt. The plastic egg hunts are over. The chocolate bunnies are eaten. Our homes are littered with empty candy wrappers. A cynical world mocks us for our traditions and belief that a dead man could actually raise from the dead. We’re back to a sober reality—pandemic, economic hardships, and the ongoing list of unpleasant realities of the day. We want to rejoice; we know we should rejoice. But to be honest we just don’t have it within ourselves to remain joyful. How can we sustain the Easter joy? How can we still live in the joy of the resurrection?

Sitting here, contemplating what to write. Yet another blog blurb, and I can’t help but take on a more somber tone. The news continues to be a dismal glimpse into fallen mankind. More acts of evil. Terror in grocery stores. Chaos in spa parlors. Needless deaths. Innocent victims. Like so many others across the world, I was shocked and disheartened by the news of Monday afternoon. Innocent people meet their untimely passing.  You may not pay too close attention to the news. After all this happened thousands of miles away; it did not impact us directly. So, we go back to our regular routines and normal lives.  Yet at the end of the day, the great tragedy is that children lost parents and parents lost children. Death reared its ugly head and left horrendous loss and pain in its wake. It is true that tragedies happen every single day; they just don’t get the national coverage nor media recognition. Still there is something about shocking, unexpected, far-too-soon acts of death that cause people to stop in their tracks and get sick to their stomach. I did. Even being so far removed, the events still shake me. News coverage and stories captivate me. My heart breaks for the families impacted. 
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Sadly, it often takes a shattering tragedy for perspective to ground me in what is truly important. This is probably true for many of us. They provide a “reality check” for my life. Self-reflection is powerful when you candidly stop to see what you may need to change in life. And so, here are some of my own thoughts in the dark wake of Colorado’s events…  

​Wait a minute... is there really more to this day than corned beef & cabbage dinners, green beer, and 'Kiss Me I'm Irish' t-shirts?  This day doesn’t actually have anything to do with bar crawls or Lucky Charms? Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate the unofficial sentiment that “Everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.”  Plus, I do absolutely plan on stopping by McDonald’s for a Shamrock Shake at some point today.  But there are much deeper roots of this holiday that go relatively unknown by those in our country today.
 
Today (yesterday) is the Feast Day of St. Patrick, commemorating the life and legacy of the man who brought the gospel to the Irish. Born in England way back in 389, St. Patrick was kidnapped and enslaved by savage and violent Irish raiders at the young age of 16. He was sold to be a shepherding slave by these pirate warriors, living in horrible conditions—often hungry, cold, threatened by elements and abused by his captors.  Patrick was enslaved in Ireland for the next 6 years before he escaped and fled back home. He later confessed that as a youth he had turned away from God; but it was during his time as a slave that Patrick was led back to faith in God. Upon his escape and return to England, he spent the next several years in a monastery strengthening his relationship with God. After becoming a priest, St. Patrick sensed God's call to return to Ireland as a missionary.
 
He came back to Ireland, a beautiful country that was ruled by tribalism, warlords and druids. They worshipped many gods and practiced magical arts. Patrick came and told them about the true God. Against great hostility and aggressive resistance, he preached throughout the land and was so successful that Ireland became known as the Isle of Saints. His ministry led hundreds of thousands to Christ.

The saga continues.
DMV.
Part Deux.
 
Garden State license plates securely on. Official NJ driver licenses delivered and in the wallets. This week it was inspection time.  Our minivan passed with flying colors.  Piece of cake. My wife was in and out of the inspection station (Newton this time, 😉) in 10 minutes.  Our 2005 Toyota Corolla? Not so much. But on the plus side, I now have a stunning new piece of decor for my car.  It is a bright red sticker on my windshield. It’s very pretty. Oh, and did I mention, it includes eight big, black letters. R-E-J-E-C-T-E-D. 

Bummer. But it wasn’t a surprise. To be fair, we were pretty certain this was going to happen. After all, parts of my car are held together by gorilla tape and zip ties. Plus for the past couple of months my “Check Engine” light has been an ever-present, glowing reminder that something was wrong.  Whatever that light indicated was askew, I knew it was not something I could fix myself. Add a few other known infirmities and we very much anticipated not passing the inspection.  We were right. REJECTED.  I guess 203K miles and a growing list of needed repairs will do that to you.
 
Glad I’m not a car…

Something doesn’t work right? REJECTED. 
Speak a hurtful word? REJECTED.
Do a bad thing? REJECTED. 

“Slowly but surely…”
 
This has been the mantra for my wife and I during the past several weeks as we get “slowly but surely” settled into our new home.  Bins unpacked. Moving boxes recycled. Wall hangings hung. Blind fixtures installed. Furniture (at least what we have) arranged. Basement shelves built. But make no mistake, we are still very much a work in progress.
 
Little by little.
Bit by bit.
Slowly but surely.
 
Though place the order way back in December, we still wait for couches and a dining set to arrive. There are many items that haven’t found a permanent home. The basement is unmercifully flooded with boxes and random objects. And there is definitely no room yet in the garage for my car. (Please know I'm not complaining; this is just a commentary on our reality. I am keenly aware of the "first world" problems to start this post.)  As much as I wish it could all be done and put away with just the snap of two fingers, it doesn’t work that way. Of course, we will get there eventually. After all, we haven’t even lived in the home for a full month yet! Slowly but surely we will achieve our desired results, gradually and methodically rather than quickly and spectacularly.

​"For dust you are and to dust you shall return." Genesis 3:19
 
With COVID concerns still real and restrictions still necessary, more churches than ever (ours included) will not be doing the imposition of ashes this year. And while that may seem strange for some, it can also provide a helpful reality check. Why do we do it? What’s the point? Is our worship invalid or incomplete without it? This now suspended tradition reminds us that all such customs, although potentially helpful, are just man-made symbolic gestures. Think about it, you don’t need dirt on your forehead to remind you that you are soiled in sin and stuck in a fallen world. That evidence is all around us! The prophet Joel reminded the people of Israel that, when it came to repentance, God was interested in their attitudes far more than their actions, attentive to their hearts far more than their visible exterior, concerned with their character far more than their customs. “Yet even now,” declare the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts, not your garments.  Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” In other words, true repentance is an inward condition, not an outward appearance. God wants our hearts, not our foreheads. True repentance is not a matter of ashes underneath your hairline, but a repentant posture of the heart before God. 

"Lord, I'm flawed and a failure. But I am yours, save me!" 
 
This is a confession we can make no matter the use of external traditions or practices. But if we can use something so that these resonate a bitter deeper, in a way that convicts us and strikes us to our sinful core than so be it.  As such, the reason for this ritual practice that starts the season of Lent boils down to three primary purposes: First, the ashes remind people of their sinfulness. Second, the ashes remind people of their mortality. Third, the ashes remind people that they have been redeemed. If you partake in ashes or not (this year or any other), just remember this... whether you receive that dirty smudge and reminder of death on Ash Wednesday or not, what is far more significant than the symbolic act of putting this mark of ashes on the forehead, is the Gospel-laden action of washing them off afterwards.  The ashes are only worth “celebrating” if it serves to bring us back to the soul-cleansing, dirt-washing, sin-removing work of our Savior Jesus. In Jesus, our slow-to-anger and merciful God relents over our deserved and pending disaster. We are plucked from the perils of wrath and hell, and placed into the cleansing blood of Jesus. No longer is our final destination the dust of the ground, but now we look forward to the beautiful gates of paradise. As a believer splashes water on his/her forehead to remove that dirty mark, we remember our baptism where we were cleansed of sin through water and the Word. We know we can’t save ourselves so we “rend our hearts” back to the Lord to receive the gift of purifying that only Jesus can give. Whether literally marked with ashes or not, we enter the penitential season of Lent praying that God would have mercy on us, forgive us our sin and bring us to everlasting life!

"Create in us a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit with us" (Psalm 51)