The month of March this year is host to the beginning of Lent, with Ash Wednesday being on the 5^th where Emanuel will begin its mid-week services at 6:15 each evening up until Holy Week (April 13-19).

Lent is the season of repentance. It’s supposed to be a time of reflection and specifically our remembering our sins that contributed to our Lord’s suffering and death. That’s why we typically start by having ashes applied to our foreheads in the shape of a cross. Ashes symbolize grief and the cross reminds us of Jesus’ sacrifice.

Although none of us has ever actually seen a man crucified, we do know that it brought about extreme pain, suffering, grief, humiliation, and eventually death by asphyxiation. I cannot possibly begin to imagine what goes through a man’s mind knowing that that is about to happen to him, but I think it helps explain our Lord’s agonizing prayer in the Garden of the Gethsemane. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” Jesus said to Peter, James, and John as he asked them to keep watch and pray with him.

On that Thursday evening so long ago, on a hill not that far away from the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus agonized over what was about to transpire. But what we need to remind ourselves is that Jesus wasn’t just agonizing over his impending physical and mental suffering, he was also agonizing over his impending spiritual suffering. For he who was without sin, was about to experience for the first time…sin…and not only that, but he was also about to suffer the punishment that comes to all sinners…separation from God.

Indeed, that is what sin eventually leads to, separation from God and heaven and while people in our world make jokes about hell, it is in reality nothing to joke about. “Father, everything is possible with you,” Jesus prayed, “Take this cup from me. Yet, not what I will, but what you will.”

The mere thought of being a sinner and then suffering its consequence led to nothing less than agony for Jesus. Does the knowledge that you’re a sinner lead you to agony? Do you pray with such intensity that your sweat is mixed with blood? Praying to your heavenly Father to take the cup of wrath away from you so that you would not have to drink it?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that most folks in our society probably have a cavalier attitude towards the sins that they commit and hardly grieve over them, much less asking for God to forgive them, but the message of Lent, is that Jesus literally went through hell in our place. He literally took upon himself our sins and was punished for them so that we wouldn’t have to suffer for them. Jesus willingly offered his life on the cross and cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” so that you and I wouldn’t have to utter those words when we die.

Should you grieve over your sins? I should hope so. Do you ask God to forgive them through Christ? I would pray that you do. Do you go to bed at night agonizing whether or not you’re going to hell? I hope not! For Christ has already paid the penalty and nothing more is needed but to believe with all your soul that this is so…and it is so…for that is what the empty tomb declares to us! But we’ll talk about that next month.

Until then….

Pastor Roloff