Reverend Stacey Simpson Duke First Baptist Church of Ann Arbor
I have to confess that my head is not really in Lent this year. It has been so hard for me to settle into what Lent calls for: quiet, reflection, confession, repentance, solemnity. My heart has rushed ahead to Easter this year, and I just can't seem to help it. My crocuses bloomed this week. Tiny little buds popped out on my lilac trees over the weekend. I saw a blue jay yesterday and heard a mockingbird. And of course there are these two babies who just keep kicking and stretching and growing and waiting to be born. Everything in me and around me says "new life!" And my heart is just not in Lent this year.
I am not alone in this leaning forward. All of our texts this morning strain ahead with me. Isaiah announces to the people: Forget the former things! Do not dwell on the past, for behold God is doing a new thing!
John tells the story of sweet Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, pouring an entire jar of perfume on Jesus' feet. She couldn't know the full significance of her act, but she was preparing him for his burial. And she was imitating in advance something he would soon do in the upper room, when he would kneel down in front of each disciple and wash their feet and tell them to go and do the same. Mary didn't know it, but by her actions she was pressing forward toward what was to come crucifixion, resurrection, and new life. Jesus himself was pushing ahead, too, having set his face toward Jerusalem, where he would be put to death. He was pushing on, no turning back.
And finally, in Paul's letter to the Philippians, he sums up the urgent push forward to new life by saying this: "I want to know Christ . Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."
For all Paul's zeal, for all his credentials, for all his confidence, he sounds awfully humble here, as he acknowledges that he has not yet fully obtained the goal of knowing Christ. He lives in a paradox. On the one hand, his whole life now has been all about knowing Christ and living like it. He says he regards everything else as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord. On the other hand, he here admits he still doesn't know Christ the way he wants to. He still has a ways to go. Even the great Apostle Paul was not yet where he wanted to be in life.
What about you? Are you where you want to be in life? Are you where you hoped you'd be at 36 or 45 or 60 or 72? Have you achieved the things you thought you would, carried out the dreams that were once so important to you, done the things that mattered most? Have you saved as much money as you should've? Have you had the kind of relationships you wanted? Have you become the person that you'd hoped? Are you where you want to be in life?
Probably very few of us could answer a completely true "yes" to that question. It is one of the pains of growing older to do one thing that matters to us may mean choosing not to do five others we also thought would be important. When I was a child I thought I had come up with the solution to the whole problem of achieving everything I dreamed of doing. I declared to my dad one day that I would be a teacher by day, a singer by night, and an actress on the weekends. (In my spare time, I planned to be a writer, a wife, and a mother.)
If only it were as easy as that. But on the way to growing up and growing older, we have to give up an awful lot of dreams. The limits of time, of energy, of resources, press in on us. The needs of other people affect our choices, too. Saying "yes" to one thing means saying "no" to many more. And it is painful.
Some of us never learn to deal with this reality. We stay stuck in the past, looking back at the poor choices we made, spinning out fantasies of what might've been if only we'd chosen differently. Our eyes are fixed stubbornly on the past, which we cannot seem to let go of. For some of us, what we're gazing at is guilt - over things we did that were wrong, things that did not match our values and beliefs, things that, if we dared ever use this word, we might even call sin. For others of us, maybe it isn't guilt, but something just as insidious we're dealing with regret. We aren't stuck in sins, per se, but we're weighed down with the burden of choices we can't unmake. Or maybe your past was a good one, and your only regret is that you've grown older and are no longer living those glory days. So, many of us stare backwards, at a past we cannot change or revisit.
Others of us deal with the painful reality of not being all we wanted to be by simply occupying ourselves with the present. We aren't looking backward, but we refuse to look forward, either. We have had so many dreams deferred and denied that it's easier just not to dream anymore. No hopes, no ambitions, just whatever comes we'll take. We'll stay exactly who we've already become, no more, no less. No growth, no change. Some may call this being laid back, others may call it being at peace. Paul would call it hogwash. It's just another way of avoiding the reality that life always rolls towards the future, and we have real choices to make.
Paul makes it clear that his vision is trained on neither the past nor the present. He chooses to forget what lies behind and to strain forward to what lies ahead. And he will measure his progress not by whether or not he made the right financial investments, the right career moves, the right relationship choices. His eyes are fixed on Christ his goal.
Paul admits he is not yet where he wants to be in life. "Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal," he says. "But I press on."
The life that stretched out behind him was a pretty good one. He had everything a Jewish man of his day could aspire to. He came from a good family, he had lived a good life, he did everything that was expected of him, and more. He had it all. And he gave all of it up, no regrets. Because of Christ. Now he is like an athlete, who with every muscle strains towards one goal. He is like a runner who knows the danger of constantly looking over his shoulder at the road he's already run he leaves the past behind. He is like a runner who knows the hazard of watching his feet every step he takes his mind is on more than the present moment. Every fiber of his being cries, "Forward!"
What would it mean to live our lives the way he lived his? Not with our minds pointed toward the past, not with our lives rooted only in the present, but with our entire beings straining towards the goal of Christ knowing him more and living more like we know him. For Paul, the future was not about making all his dreams come true, about achieving security or status or bliss. For Paul, the future was about only one thing: I want to know Christ!
According to him, this is the only rule worth measuring a life by: do you know Christ? and do you want to know Christ more? and are you living like it? Everything else is just details. In his view, every other way we measure our lives counts for nothing compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ. So whether you are rich or poor, whether you are considered "successful" or not, whether you are in a happy relationship or not, whether you feel you have some legacy to leave behind or not, this is the measure: do you know Christ? and do you want to know Christ more? and are you living like it? Whether you are 27 or 87, there is only direction to go now: forward. Forward towards the Christ who has already made you his own.
Holy Week and then Easter are almost upon us, but it is not too late to give something up for Lent. Leave behind your guilt and regret. You may have done terrible things, but that's in the past. Or you may have simply made some choices you wish you had not made it's still the past. Or maybe you loved your old life so much that you can do nothing but grieve that it is now gone but it's the past, you can't get it back. Leave it behind, let it go, give it up.
Maybe the past isn't your thing. Maybe your problem instead is that you've been afraid to hope for more than what you've already got now. So you content yourself with whatever comes your way, afraid to press for more out of life. Don't think about the past too much, don't think about the future, just tell yourself that everything's fine just the way it is. It's so hard to believe you could have more love, more joy, more peace in your life. So you've just accepted whatever life has dealt you and learned not to complain too much. It's Lent now, and time for you to give all that up. Give up your fear. Give up your complacency. Leave it, let it go. Step out, press forward, strain your heart towards Christ and see what happens.
We live in a world that measures the value of a life in all the wrong ways. Paul reminds us there is only one measure that matters do you know Christ? do you want to know him more? are you living like it? This is what it is to press on, to move forward, to strain towards the kind of life that matters. And it's not about earning anything. It's not about winning Christ's affections or showing others how good we are. Christ has already laid hold of us, he has made us his own, he has proclaimed us good.
The next move is ours. There is new life, full life, waiting for us just ahead. No matter what we've done, no matter what our regrets are, no matter what our grief. No matter how far we've already come, either. Christ is waiting, just ahead of us, beckoning us to turn away from everything that would hold us back, beckoning us to turn towards him, who has already turned towards us, and who loves us so much.
Truth is, the only direction of life is forward anyway. The question is what are we moving forward to? More regret, more guilt, more grief? Or towards Christ our hope, who stands ahead of us now, strong as eternity and shining like the sun?1
