The Second Sunday in Lent - March 16

Sandhill Cranes and Lent
John 3:1-17

Those of us who listen for the cranes heard them this week. The Sandhill cranes calling overhead. Once you know it, it’s an unmistakable sound. And beautiful. Those of us who live just south of Lake Michigan are in one of the major migration flyways.  The Sandhill cranes are on their way north. Their call, of course, is a herald of spring.

There are other heralds of spring appearing around us. We are particularly eager for them this year. My witch hazel is blooming. Or at least it was beginning to bloom yesterday; it’s just shivering this morning. Bulbs are coming up. Heralds of the coming of spring.

Do you think of Lent as a herald of spring? Is the season of Lent an exciting sign that spring is coming? Does it quicken your heart like the sight of the first crocus peeking through the snow? Or is Lent a trying season that that, well, does happen to coincide with the coming of spring? Some years more than others.

These heralds of spring around us in nature raise our spirits because they are a promise about the future. They are a sure and certain promise of a future that is coming full of beauty and new life and growth. Spring is joyous because of the promise of new life emerging.

The word “Lent” comes from a Germanic root that means springtime. It’s not the formal name of the season. I do remember from high school German that spring is “der Früling.” But “der Lenz” is springtime, the experience of spring, particularly the lengthening of days.

Like spring, Lent is about promise, a promise of new life.

I’ve been thinking about Lent versus Advent. Both seasons of preparation and promise, but they feel very different. And, for me at least, Advent feels more like spring even though it falls in the darkest part of winter. Advent has that eager and excited hopefulness, as we anticipate new birth. Why doesn’t Lent feel that way? I think of two possible reasons.

First, to stretch a metaphor… In Advent we are welcoming a joyous birth, like grandparents whose first grandchild came into the world in that stable in Bethlehem. In Lent it’s more like we are the ones who are pregnant. And I’ve been told that pregnancy is not always comfortable or easy. It requires great perseverance and strength. It’s work. And in a way, we’re the baby, too. Trying to grow and develop into the people God calls us to be. That’s hard work, too.

Switching back to a seasonal metaphor. In Lent we have to do the work of spring. We don’t just watch it unfold around us. We have to clear out the dead growth within us. We have to prepare the soil for new plantings. It’s work. It’s like we have to put all of our own physical and emotional energy into creating the thaw. That’s a lot of metaphorical kilojoules.

Lent is work.

Second, I wonder if the promise of Lent is not often harder to understand and accept than the promise of Advent. A baby being born versus an adult being born again. A baby is such a clear symbol and example of new life. But what is it Jesus is really talking about in today’s Gospel? I gather the Greek word has multiple meanings. It can mean born anew or born from above or born again. That can be hard to understand, hard to accept, hard to believe.

Nicodemus is the poster child for this struggle. He finds it difficult to understand or believe what Jesus offers. Maybe we are more like Nicodemus than we like to admit. He finds it difficult to believe in the born again life that Jesus brings. It has often been noted that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. In the dark. He represents all those things about God and our faith that we don’t see clearly or accept fully. The dark places in our belief. The gaps in our faith and trust.

Nicodemus needed Lent. Nicodemus needed the season and the work of Lent. Because Lent is not only a herald of new life to come, the work of Lent is the way forward, the path out of darkness. The words of the Prayer Book call us to the observance of a holy Lent. By “self-examination and repentance”—looking into the dark places within us and asking God to bring healing and light. “Prayer, fasting, and self-denial”—preparing our souls and bodies for God’s planting and new growth. “Reading and meditating on God’s holy Word”—to hear again and again God’s promise to be with us in love.

Spring is coming, and it will come, whether we care or notice. But Lent only exists if we do it. Lent is only real in our observance of it, when we do the work of Lent. And the work of Lent brings spring to our souls. It lengthens the days of our faith. The work of Lent brings light into the dark places within, thaws the frozen places, prepares us to that God can plant seeds for new life.

Just as the chortling of the cranes is a sure and certain herald of the coming of spring, Lent is a glorious herald that Easter is coming. But the work of Lent is also the pathway to Easter. It is the work that prepares us for God’s gift of new life.

In the name of the church, I invite you to the observance of a holy Lent.