Sermon: Temptation and Salvation.
With Ash Wednesday, the season of Lent begins.
In the Danish Church of Denmark, we usually begin the Lenten season with a bang: with Fastelavn. With a fun party with hitting-the-barrel, costumes, happy kids, and delicious fastelavnsboller. Fastelavn Sunday falls 7 weeks before Easter and has traditionally been the day, when you could eat, drink and party just before the 40 days of fasting that preceded Easter.
Here at the Danish Lutheran church, we usually celebrate Fastelavn with happy costumed children on the last Sunday in February. Last year – in 2020 – we had an absolutely fantastic Fastelavns Sunday here in the church. Many happy children and helpful confirmands dressed in the colors of the rainbow. After the service, we sang, hit the barrel and many Fastelavnsboller were enjoyed.
This year we also celebrate Fastelavn on the last Sunday in February. However, differently due to Covid19 restrictions and considerations.
In many ways, this past year, since the Pandemic hit us and the world, seems to have been a long desert walk through fear, change, restrictions, face masks, hand sanitizer, distance and cancellations. We have had to fast from our normal way of life: and this involuntary Pandemic Fasting has probably made us realize what's important and vital, and what we can do without or can change.
Today is the title of sermon : Temptation and Salvation.
Two contradictions or opposites that characterize our lives as human beings and as Christians. Two poles where in between our lives stretches out. Our lives are lived in the tension between contradictions that also the Book of Ecclesiastes so finely says:
Everything has a time, for everything that happens under heaven, there is a time.
A time to give birth, a time to die.
A time to plant, a time to clear.
A time to kill, a time to heal.
A time to tear down, a time to build up.
A time to cry, a time to laugh.
A time to keep complaining, a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones, a time to collect stones.
A time to embrace, a time not to embrace.
A time to seek out, a time to lose.
A time to hide, a time to throw away.
A time to tear up, a time to sew together.
A time to keep quiet, a time to talk.
A time to love, a time to hate.
A time for war, a time for peace."
Yes, everything has a time when everything that has happened under heaven there is a time.
We live in the tension between opposites. Also the contradiction between Temptation and Salvation. We hear about it in today's gospel with baptism and temptation in the desert, and we heard about it in the history of Noah's ark and the rainbow.
The Christian faith and church are filled with stories and symbols.
The flood and the ship on the great rushing sea, followed by a luminous colorful promising rainbow.
The baptism in the floating river followed by a beautiful descending dove.
Temptation and salvation.
God sent the flood into the sinful world to wash the world clean again; to save life from the sins of temptation. The beautiful eternal symbol of salvation became the rainbow: as a sign of a covenant between God and man.
God sent Jesus to the Jordan River to be baptized, and within this baptism began his call to wash mankind clean from the sins of temptation. The beautiful symbol of salvation became the dove, as a sign of the eternal presence of God’s Spirit.
We need Lent to peel away all the unnecessary, all the harmful, all the degradable, all the inhuman, all the tempting and all that devastating things. Lent is the time when we can try to wash our sinful lives clean, or at least recognize where we fail, and that we fail. That we need strength and forgiveness.
Many people are fasting during Lent by forgoing something or by making changes in the way of life: stop drinking coffee, eat chocolate, spend 5 hours a day on Facebook and instead take a fresh detox for the body and soul.
Fasting is an invitation to us to look critically at our own lives, our own choices, and the temptations that may lead us away from God and from our fellow man.
The Danish priest and freedom fighter Kaj Munk understood, if any, the temptation and salvation of human life. His life was a testimony to a man's struggle with the temptations of life and the hope of salvation.
There is only one hymn in the Danish hymnal by Kaj Munk, although he wrote many beautiful hymns. The one hymn found in the hymnal is just 2 short verses. But remarkable verses! No lent time without this hymn. No lent time without these short and precise words about our constant struggle between temptation and salvation, between good and evil;
You probably know my heart. You know that God is great
But great is also his enemya As we often did feel.
Alas, then you get to fight and believe despite falls
That great is surely God's enemy But bigger, though, is GOD!
The hymn was written in 1938 and it is one of my favorite hymns.
In the grim war years, during the dark occupation and the brave years of resistance, Kaj Munk understood that faith and life have consequences. That here on earth the lights can be stalked and limited and darkness seems unkempt.
But the words of faith, the promise of faith, the rainbow of faith, the dove of hope, and the hope of light continue to send its light to the earth — until the human hearts finally bow and believe. And believe that great is god's evil enemy, but greater is GOD!
Temptation and salvation.
Lent has begun and thus our journey towards Easter, light and salvation.
It begins with Jesus. First on the banks of the river and a voice from heaven: "You are my son, the beloved ."
And right away, the contradictions and struggles of life are revealed. For Jesus is driven away from the healing water and into the arid desert to be tempted. But this blessing and God’s presence will be his strength and his hope that brings him through the 40 days.
Now we are not literary sending our loved ones into the desert. Or into the wilderness of temptation. And yet we send our loved ones into situations, that we do not always understand or secure.
We send our children to school, where they may have to face demonic teasing children or demonic destructive teachers.
We send our young people into a world of temptations, offers and incalculable consequences.
We send our spouses into workplaces that can sometimes be like a lion's den.
We send our friends from the peace and quiet of the church into an unpredictable world.
What words do we send with them? How do we send each other into life so that we are sent with strength, and hope?
We are only human beings and although we believe in compassion and encouragement, we sometimes fail. Sometimes our loved ones may feel when they leave the house that we don't care or even notice them.
The world is a tough place. The world can be a desert walk between temptation and salvation, between light and darkness. But even the smallest things can make a big difference.
Here in Lent let us help each other to a better life, where we see each other, hear each other, care for each other and send each other into life with the blessing of attention and not the curse of indifference.
Let lent time be a time for reading and reflection, but also a time for care and compassion. Where we try to color the days with beautiful rainbows and descending doves.
Let us try to be rainbow in another person's cloud, as Maya Angelou so beautifully invites us to. Lent can be the time to start paying more attention, being less judgmental, and being more forgiving. So, we can find our way to salvation, life and light.
Amen.