Lent started early this year.
With the east coast up to its eyebrows in snow, the Lenten season was underway.
I only learned recently that every year Fat Tuesday comes to an abrupt end at
midnight. New Orleans police shut down the Mardi Gras festivities promptly at 12
am in reverence for Ash Wednesday. The stroke of midnight is the moment Bourbon
Street revelers must give it up.
We always think of "giving up" something for Lent. Some people give up meat.
Others give up sweets, or alcohol, or television. If you want to face a real
Lenten challenge try giving up your cell phone for forty days! [At this point
you might want to make a karaoke moment and ask what people are "giving up."]
But even that might be enough to get you in a true Lenten mood.
Preacher Kimberly Long tells this story at the beginning of one of her Lenten
sermons. Entering church on Ash Wednesday, Nora Gallagher encounters a friend
who, when asked what she is giving up for Lent, quips: "Anne's giving up
drinking, Terri's giving up chocolate, and I’m just giving up" ("Things Seen and
Unseen," Journal for Preachers, Lent 2007, p.9).
Ever feel like that? "Just giving up"?
"Just give up" was the Pharisee's advice to Jesus in today's gospel text. Herod
is after you. He has you marked for death. Get out of town quick. Give up your
mission here.
When Jesus hears this warning, he surprises those Pharisees by both disregarding
and embracing their message. Jesus dismisses the threat of Herod with a flip and
a quip. Herod is nothing but a "sly fox," Jesus quips, forever plotting but
powerless against God's mission in the world. Jesus has his own schedule, his
own agenda, his own mission to fulfill, and the time-frame has already been
divinely determined.
But Jesus also asserts he WILL give up. He WILL give himself up. He WILL travel
to Jerusalem and meet head on the traumatic tradition of that city encapsulated
in this phrase - "Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those
who are sent to it" (v.34). Jesus will give up everything, his very life, in
order to fulfill his eternal mission of salvation.
Let me put it as clearly as I can: Jesus will "give it up" in order that we
might "get it all" . . .
.
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