Pastor’s Message  

So folgt nun Gottes Beispiel als die geliebten Kinder
und lebt in der Liebe, wie auch Christus uns geliebt hat
und hat sich selbst für uns gegeben als Gabe und Opfer,
Gott zu einem lieblichen Geruch.

Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children
And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us,
and hath given himself for us an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

Epheser / Ephesians 5:1+2 (KJV)

Dear members and friends of Zion,

“Lent is a time for Retirement.”

I was truly surprised to find this as the first item in an old, undated booklet on “Some Hints for Lent”. What does the author mean? That looking at the size of your retirement savings does hurt – so face it in Lent? That it’s all about giving it up, so we might as well give up our job? Well, it turns out that the author, the Rt. Rev. A.C.A. Hall, one time Bishop of Vermont, uses the word in its old meaning: withdrawing, scaling back, the act of going away or retreating into seclusion from the world. He clarifies: “We cannot, nor ought we to, withdraw from the duties of our state of life, whether in the family or in business. The retirement to which we are called is from the unrestrained social intercourse and from the amusements which at other times may be perfectly innocent, and even beneficial, but which we now put aside for a time, in order to give ourselves the better to higher and more important interests.”

The forty days of the Lenten journey from Ashes to Easter invite all of us to follow Christ into the wilderness, to the poor and destitute, and up to Jerusalem.

Many have found out that they do this best using tools and practices that have been hallowed over time: prayer and study of scripture, both private and public; fasting (not just food…) and giving alms: time, talent and money for others. All of which is to redirect and refocus our lives through a fresh encounter with “was uns unbedingt angeht” (what ultimately matters for us).

In doing so, we will realize that we can only follow Him so much and so far. We want to be better than Peter who tried to rebuke Jesus and would deny his Lord three times, we want to stand close by Him and not flee when the disciples flee in horror, and we certainly don’t want to be counted with Judas and those who shout Crucify.

And yet the power of the stories that we hear in Lent is that they show us again and again that that is where we come from and that we are in no ways better than any of them: sinners in need of salvation.

We want to be followers of God and live in love and faith and hope, but we will only be able to walk that road when we “retire” from our ways of reckoning and first acknowledge what He has done for us: “Thou didst bear the smiting only that it might not fall on me; stoodest falsely charged and lonely That I might be safe and free; Comfortless that I might know Comfort from thy boundless woe.”(SBH 79:2, German: EG 86:5))

Christ is both sacrifice and example to us: it is through His sacrifice that he saves us from fear and sin and in giving his grace to us empowers us to follow Him in faith and service, in a very active retirement, as it were:

ALMIGHTY God,
who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin,
and also an ensample [example] of godly life:
Give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Have a blessed Lent 2004! / Eine gesegnetePassionszeit 2004 wünscht Ihnen

Your Pastor Dr Holger Roggelin

Ø       By the way: You can do some bilingual Lenten study and meditation even while browsing the internet. Try http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/ashp/oconnor/freedom/pcpage.html

This is a site where you can simultaneously view a woodcut from Albrecht Dürer's 'Large Passion' series, along with the text and audio from a congruent area of J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion. 'The images are from the AMICO image library; the originals are held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The audio clips and text (both German and translation) are taken from the Karl Richter recording of J.S. Bach's Matthäus-Passion. The audio clips are in RealAudio format'. – Highly recommended!

Ø       … and you find the complete text of Bishop Hall’s “Some Hints For Lent” at: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/pc/usa/acahall/hints.html

Pastor Roggelin's Archive of Past Messages From Zion