Lent, Lasts, & Other Holy Things
There’s something about the season of Lent that is particularly moving to me. Journeying with Jesus as he makes his way to the cross, reading the stories of miracles and ministry, watching as the powerful people of Jesus’s day set him up for failure. These stories captivate me, inviting me to ask big questions and to examine my faith more closely.
Lent has always been this way for me – I often explain it to my congregations as a time of growing deeper in our relationships with God and with our neighbors, and an intentional call to renewed, holy living. But ever since I walked with the people at Bethel Hill United Methodist Church through the faithful conclusion of their ministry, Lent has taken on a different meaning. It allows me to engage our Christian stories in a new way – by looking at the lasts.
In 2014, knowing that the Bethel Hill congregation was going to be closing during the Easter season, Lent struck me differently. With a closure date set for just after Easter, I knew, and they knew, that this would be their last Lent together. The last view of the purple paraments on the altar. The last time they’d sing “What Wondrous Love is This” in their sanctuary. So many lasts.
That Lenten season was filled with grief. It opened up the stories of scripture in a new way, allowing us to examine the lasts of Jesus as he journeyed to the cross. And in those stories, we found a profound hope that shines through. We are a people who believe in resurrection. The church is a community of people who put their faith in God – and who believe in new life, even after death. As followers of Jesus, we are a people who know, who proclaim, that death is not the end of the story – it isn’t the last thing.
Knowing the stories of our faith and preaching them to a grieving congregation are two different things. It’s one thing to know and believe the stories, and it’s a completely different thing to live them. Nicodemus questioning how one is to be born again. Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan Woman at the well. Psalm 23. Jesus’s grief over the death of Lazarus. Ezekiel and the Valley of Dry Bones. These are the stories we shared in worship. These are the stories that helped us all – preacher included – wrestle with the grief and loss that was a part of that congregation’s last Lent together. It was holy time in sacred space.
For this preacher, and for the congregation too, we learned to find ourselves in our sacred stories. We learned to cling to the hope that these stories offered, even in incredibly difficult moments. While this congregation did its best to faithfully conclude its ministry (not without hardship or heartache), I began to see a change in the folks who remained to the end. It was a commitment to doing the hard and holy things. They were determined to live as followers of Jesus, even to the cross and to the grave, knowing and trusting with their whole hearts that this was not the end of the story.
Anyone who has had to walk through the grief of last things knows how complex those lasts can be. Grief in what was lost. Relief in what isn’t required any longer. Anxiety about what life will be like next. Hope in a new and transformed life, somehow, someway. That’s what I saw in the lives of my congregation as we walked through that last Lent. The Last Supper was real for us. The grief at the foot of the cross was not just a story, but a real, holy grief that we shared beneath their cross and at their altar.
On Easter Sunday, we gathered together for their last Easter – knowing that the following week would be their last, last. There was a mix of joy and grief, celebration and deep heartbreak. Folks who had already found new church homes returned for one last Easter. Grieving folks gathered together to live the story – to pray that it might be real for them, somehow, in some way, knowing that new life looks nothing like the former life. And this pastor was in awe of God’s presence in our midst. All I can say is that it was holy. It shaped the ways I know, believe, live, and preach these stories moving forward. They are not just stories that I have read and chosen to believe, but stories I’ve seen lived out in small, holy glimpses.
Last things are hard things. We say goodbye to what once was, sometimes without knowing what will be. But as resurrection people, as Christians who follow Jesus, we know that Lent is not the end of the story. Last things are not always what they seem. Instead, last things can be the beginnings of other holy things. Through God’s grace, last things can move us toward new life.
