Back in 2011, I began my Easter sermon at Pinnacle with a joke:

A passenger in a taxi leaned over to ask the driver a question and tapped him on the shoulder. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, nearly hit a bus, drove up over the curb, and stopped just inches from a large plate glass window. For a few moments everything was silent in the cab, and then the still shaking driver said, 'I'm sorry but you scared the daylights out of me.' The frightened passenger apologized to the driver and said he didn't realize a mere tap on the shoulder could frighten him so much. The driver replied, 'No, no, I'm sorry, it's entirely my fault. Today is my first day driving a cab.... I've been driving a hearse for the last 25 years.'

I don't remember where I got the joke, nor do I really want to remember. But I do remember why I told it, because there's an old tradition about Easter in some parts of the church, that on Easter believers should go out of their way to laugh. 

We're supposed to laugh the laugh of resurrection in the face of death, which is meant to be a laugh against the Devil. 

I'm told that Martin Luther once said that the best defense against evil (or as he said it, the Devil) is healthy laughter. There's something to that, so much so that even a bad joke can get a belly laugh on Easter.

We're still in Lent, though, which is meant to be a more solemn, reflective, even quiet time. I hope you find Lent that way, but I also hope that if you're taking the time to experience all that Lent can offer your spiritual life you're also remembering—deep in your spirit—the joy that waits for you. 

So now, even in Lent, this might be a word about Easter worth remembering. 

Embrace the joy of life in Christ even through the harder parts of your life—not to deny pain or difficulty, but to remember that Christ is sovereign and raised from death, and that he is with you every moment. He is Risen!

Let's live that truth—with a quieter chuckle now, and a hearty laugh on Easter!

“And I heard as it were the voices of a great multitude………Saying Alleluia for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” ~ Revelation 19:8

At long last, we get to sing “Alleluia.” And I am not necessarily referring to the long forty days of Lent. I am referring to that seeming eternity between Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday morning.

It’s bad enough having to refrain from using the word “alleluia” throughout lent and focusing on sacrifice, but it is harder still to hear the words “Our Lord is dead.” There are many free-church traditions that simply will not say it. I understand. It’s tough. It tastes like blasphemy on its way out of the mouth. It sounds like blasphemy when it reaches the ears. But it was true for three days. And we feel the pain and emptiness of that truth when we say it and hear it.

But then comes Sunday and we are refreshed, renewed, and re-energized with one simple word: “Alleluia!” The word is so powerful we wrap it in the wonderful announcement: “He is risen! He is risen indeed!” What a prelude to the one word that fits all Christian traditions in all languages on earth and in heaven: “Alleluia!”

Sing it with your heart. Sing it with tears of joy. Sing it in the face of death. Sing its light into darkness. Sing “Alleluia!”.

Prior to coming to Pinnacle, Marilyn and I served Metropolitan United Church in London, Ontario. One Easter the children were given little bells as they entered the sanctuary on Easter Sunday morning. Their assignment was to listen for the word “Alleluia”. Every time they heard it they were to ring their bells. It was an incredible experience.

Sing and live your alleluia. Ring the bells of heaven!

I expected things to change, for life to be different, but there was nothing. There were the same number of things on my “to-do list” and e-mails to respond to, laundry to complete and weeds to pull. Nothing seemed to change last Wednesday like I thought it should.

Last Wednesday began our season of Lent. Lent is the forty days prior to Easter. These forty days are symbolic of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness and the forty years of the Israelites in the desert where they were tested, challenged and learned how to depend upon God. The season has often been described to me as forty days of giving up and taking on. People give up chocolate, TV, Facebook and take on prayer, time with God and a better Christian lifestyle. For forty days we are to pray, confess and contemplate our walk with Jesus.

We begin these forty days on Ash Wednesday. At Pinnacle we join on Wednesday evening for worship, communion and the imposition of ashes. We place the ashes on our foreheads as a sign and symbol of the dust we came from described in Genesis and the dust that we will return to in death. The life and death that comes from God and lives with us during our busy, stressful and sometimes hectic lives.

But after the service was over and I had been anointed with the cross of ashes on my forehead nothing seemed different. You would think I would feel the holy presence of Jesus, ready to hunker down and spend these forty days together. But I could only think about the mountain of emails, a long list of to do items and the spirit I expected to change in me as we began Lent, wasn’t really there.

I expected to feel like I had entered a holy season, a time when moments for prayer would be more evident. The feeling of God’s presence was swirling around me, and the anticipation of Easter would be as exciting as Christmas morning, but I got up Thursday morning feeling exactly the same way.

That is when I realized that the emails, to-do lists and my attitude of life around me was never going to change unless I changed. Jesus asks us to change not by stopping what we are doing, but by seeing our days differently. Lent isn’t the season when God writes the 11^th commandment, thou shall find time for me today…Lent is the season of recognizing that we don’t always know where Jesus is in our day. We are asked to allow ourselves to be lost, so that instead of finding God where we want to see him (and in turn, ignoring God in other places of our lives) we let the Holy Spirit find us.

I realized that I was expecting Jesus to show up with a Where’s Jesus picture page (like Where’s Waldo, but better) so that I could spend these forty days searching for Jesus. Jesus would know what I needed to work on, but that would mean that our relationship was all about me. I needed to find Jesus, I needed to work harder, I needed to plan my prayer time more efficiently. It is just the opposite, which is why Lent is so difficult. Jesus doesn’t want us to find him, instead He wants us to stop and let Jesus find us. Lent is about letting our busy, full and sometimes stressful lives be set aside so that Jesus can enter those place too.

Our journey with Jesus doesn’t change in an instant; remember, it took forty years for the Israelites in the wilderness to figure it out. Use these forty days to allow Jesus to enter every corner of our life and be present.

Lent is a season of repentance, fasting, and prayer.  We talk about these themes in church all the time, but recently I ran across this idea of a fourth practice of Lent, remembering.  If you are like me, it is easy to remember all things we need to do like laundry, taxes, and projects that need our attention.  We also easily remember mistakes we made.  Things we wish we could change or events we wish turned out differently.  But this Lenten practice isn’t about remembering all those things that we wish we could forget, but about remembering what we have forgotten about God.

The Israelites had a wonderful way of this doing this.  When they celebrated something that God had done they would build an altar.  These altars would be stacked rocks on the side of the road or even in a field so that every time they passed the altar in their travels, it would be a sign to remember God. 

For example, after a long time, the Israelites had struggled to win battles, they made their own decisions, and thought they knew exactly what to do.  It wasn’t until Samuel pointed out the places where God had helped them through struggles in the past that they remembered.

It was at that moment that the Israelites recommitted themselves to following God.  Samuel erected an altar and named it Ebenezer, which means “a stone of help” (1 Samuel 7:12).  This stone altar was a marker in their life that God was their stronghold and help. It was a sign of a fresh beginning and it says something important for us about remembering God’s love is everlasting.  His grace covers every mistake, hurt or event we wish turned out differently.  God goes with you through everything.

We sing about our own Ebenezer in the hymn Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Read the words again,

“Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
Hither by thy help I’m come;
And I hope by thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed his precious blood.”

During Lent we raise our ebenezer’s as a way to remember God’s gracious gifts He gives us.  We mark them in homes, in our church, and in our hearts as signs that God helped us then and God will lead us through the rest of our life.  Spend some time this Lent remembering and setting up your altars wherever you go.