This past Sunday morning, the Lantern community continued to remember the Lent season - on-line. Using the floating-bronze figure of expressionist artist Ernst Barlach, Pastor Ed compared the posture of Lent to the hanging posture of the transcended sculpture.
“As we prepare for the monumental significance of Easter morning, we hang in the balance,” Ed said. “We’re asked to reflect on what’s true about ourselves and to long for what is to come.”
But, the truth is, our entire lives teeter
between our intense knowledge of life, he said, and our intense knowledge of death. This posture is at the heart of the Lent season. Jesus was getting at that when he said that those who reflect on this balance with a thoughtful heart will be comforted and, further, will be blessed.
Those attending the Sunday online service were asked to read Psalm 30 - which is chalked full of the balance between heaven and earth, just as the sculpture is suspended between ground and sky.
During the Lent season humanity seems to hang in the balance. How are these incongruences resolved? The congregation read Hebrews 12:1-3 where it states that “perfecter” of our faith – Jesus - takes all incongruences into a tomb, but rolls away the stone.
Before members of the congregation weighed in on-line, the community ended with this prayer:
“Lord, we come to you even though we are often the ones who push you away. We have agitated often against you . . . as your children we hover between earth and heaven.
We know you forgive and that’s what we’re asking for; that you loosed our sackcloth and gird us with gladness as Psalm 30 reads. You assist us with our mourning and we know - in your mercy - you replace it with dancing.
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