Now let us do this little at the beginning of our Lent, that we strew ashes upon our heads to signify that we ought to repent of our sins during the Lenten fast.
Aelfric (c955-1020 CE), Lives of the
Saints
The dreary month of February will be a
busy one in the life of the church. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday,
February 13, and continues 40 days (excluding Sundays) until Easter.
Lent, the seasonal name derived from the Anglo-Saxon lencten
which means spring, began as a time of fasting and preparation for
baptism of converts on Easter. It has become a time of penance where
wordly practices are sacrificed in favor of increased prayer and
contemplation. While the season is a somber one, the Sundays in
Lent are not Sundays of
Lent. Although each may reflect some of the penitential tone of the
season, the early church celebrated all Sundays as “little
Easters.”
The
Sunday prior to Ash Wednesday, February 10, is most definitely not
somber! It is the Sunday which celebrates the Transfiguration (Luke
9:28-43) during which Jesus is transfigured beside Moses and Elijah.
Not surprisingly, Jesus's companions—Peter, James, and John—want
to set up camp in this holy mountain, but very quickly a cloud
engulfs them. It is only in the cloud that God speaks to them,
declaring, as He did at the river Jordan, that their friend, their
companion, was both human and divine. Further, in the midst of the
cloud, and the confusion, God ordered these disciples to listen
to Jesus.
Think
about the disciples on the mountain: Peter, the rock, bold and
stubborn; and James and John, the “sons of thunder” who likely
earned that nickname. These are men who are accustomed to giving
orders, to speaking their minds forcefully, but, in this instance,
they are instructed to listen.
For once, according to Scripture, they kept their mouths shut. But
it wasn't until the next day that Jesus spoke, and it wasn't to them.
It was to heal a demon-possessed boy. Scripture records that they
were astounded at the greatness of God.
Really. The
disciples who had seen Elijah and Moses with Jesus, the disciples who
had heard God from the cloud, these disciples were “astounded at
the greatness of God.” (Luke 9:43) They might have heard, but they
certainly were not listening!
How often do we
hear rather than listen intently? May we, during this Lenten season,
repent of merely hearing and seek to listen intently to the voice of
the Father.
