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Across the Pastor’s Desk by Henry Burt

Happy first Sunday in Lent for all who… celebrate?

Five years ago, COVID took the world by storm. I joke that my birthday, March 15, was the inaugural National Cancel Sunday Church Services Day that year. But then another Sunday went by when we stayed home. And then another. National Cancel Sunday Church Services Day became as much of a weekly ordeal as cutting out meat on Fridays during Lent, if that’s your sort of thing.

As much as this prolonged season of quarantine was a disturbance for clergy and laity alike, we began to find the humor in it, especially once we realized we were in it for the long haul. Whimsical Facebook posts from fellow clergy showed online service bloopers — who knew cats had a knack for Zoombombing? At one point in late March of that year, one of my friends posted, “This is the Lent-iest Lent I have ever Lented.”

Of course, as with Christmas or Easter, the most epic season of Lent ever lived was by the man himself: Jesus of Nazareth. He journeyed for forty days in the wilderness without food or water. As much as Jesus was divine, he was also human. I bet that he felt his Lent was getting to be pretty Lent-y within the first few days. Heck, I start to get hangry if I haven’t had lunch by 2pm.

But I also think Jesus had a knack for humor, too, just as we mortals do. It was a source of resilience for him, especially when he came to find that he was in his Lenten journey for the long haul.

When Satan tempted him to turn some stones into bread so that he might satiate his hunger, he wittingly quotes Old Testament scripture:

“Man cannot live on bread alone.” — Deuteronomy 8:3

I bet that he got a chuckle out of Satan for this, as if to say, “Well, Jesus, you got me there.”

As human beings, we are in this business of living for the long haul. That also means we are also in this business of suffering, what with all of life’s pain. And then there is this whole mortality thing. Theologian Richard Rohr is often quoted for saying that the Christian way of living is learning how to die. Many of us commemorated the life cycle complete when we received ashes on our foreheads last Wednesday. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” If we were really cool, we then went out to get a tattoo that says, “Memento Mori.”

Pain and suffering, death and dying — they are not laughing matters. But in some ways, they are. A defiant laugh serves in protest to declare that the sting of death does not have the final word. In our daily lives, whether we are battling cancer, dealing with a job layoff, breaking up with our first girlfriend or simply distraught about the fact that Mom forgot to restock the pantry with chocolate chip cookies, we would all do well to hold a healthy tension.

This is the gravity of the matter in one hand: when we start to panic over our daily bread not being met the way we want it — with the anticipation of Jesus’ transformative inbreaking that can provide in ways we never thought possible — it will have us laughing to ourselves.

“Well, Jesus, you got me there.”

Henry Burt is the associate pastor at Grace Lutheran Church.