Lent has arrived. When you come to church on Sunday, you will notice that the crosses are veiled in purple cloth. In the church, the twinkling lights behind the altar will be gone, as will the blue banners with stars. I was recently asked why we veil the crosses, and the first answer that came to mind was, “Because we have always veiled the crosses.” But it started somewhere and some time, long before now.
The origins of veiling crosses, statues, and icons are hazy; there are some who say that it dates to the ninth century in what is now modern Germany. Churches covered the whole altar with cloth, signaling to the largely illiterate population that something had drastically changed. During the Good Friday service, when they read the part in the Passion where the curtain of the temple was torn in two, they tore the cloth covering the altar in two.
Other sources say it was done to deprive people of their usual surroundings, in order to shake them up and help them realize something different was happening. Lent is certainly a season where things are shaken up. For most of its history, the church has treated it as a time to suffer and make sacrifices, so that we might better understand the suffering of Christ. But how could we ever understand the suffering of Christ?
Not eating chocolate or staying off social media does not give me a window into the mind of Christ. Jesus never taught us to suffer for the sake of suffering; what he said was that when we fully love God and our neighbor, we will suffer, because people around us will object to it. For example, if you saw your closest friend on the side of the road with a flat tire, odds are good you wouldn’t hesitate to stop and help him or her.
But how many strangers have we left by the side of the road? How many excuses do we make as to why we aren’t stopping? I’ve used the following excuses on several occasions: what if they are mentally unwell, what if it’s a trap, and they are luring me in to rob me, I don’t have time to stop; I have to make my appointment, I’m not that good at changing tires…If helping a stranger change a tire causes me to miss a service or picking up my children from school, there will be many people who will be upset with me, and if it continually happens, there will be trouble.
This is why we have such a lengthy confession on Ash Wednesday; we have the ability to do good, and time and again we choose to do otherwise. While we acknowledge our failings, we aren’t meant to dwell on them. Lent is a time to shake things up, to see the world differently, to come closer to Christ. What if this Lent we sacrifice those things that take us away from Christ? What if we fast from self-criticism, criticizing others, anger, bitterness, impatience, gossip, envy, haughtiness, and greed? Rather than praying for penance as punishment, what if we instead pray to reveal God’s glory in the world? What if we make prayers of thanks, grace, and love? The church should never be used as a cudgel; it is meant to be a comfort, an oasis, a blessing. If we love as we are called to love, as we were made to love, we will shake things up. And we will be hurt. But it will be good, and it will be of God.
The Rev. Jason Shelby
Rector
jason.shelby@stfrancispalosverdes.org