The Apostle Paul lays out the vision of the Christian life in a thorough pastoral theology. In his writings, he speaks tenderly as a shepherd who understands the human condition like no other. Suffering: check. Joy: Check. Political adversaries: check. Thorn in the flesh: Check. A powerful conversion experience: Check. Persecuting Christians: Check. An incomparable intellectual resume: Check. Everything is there.
This opens the door for the apostle to speak authoritatively on the stages of the Christian experience. For Paul, a one-sided theology is doomed. If everything is chuckles and champaign, then it doesn’t rightly reflect the Christian practice. The Christian experience is not only Easter-tide but Lenten-tide. Man does not live on thrills alone but on the crucified experience also.
Paul develops a pastoral theology that puts before us the joys and sorrows of the Christian life. Lent is essential because it reminds us of the humility of Christ and our call to put on repentance. Lent is necessary because without sorrow and without grief and without the experience of brothers and sisters in mutual consolation, we form an over-idealized Christian life, and consequently, we create a vision that is unrealistic and unfruitful.
We Lent this morning as we confess our sins and kneel before our God. Before we arise in the glory-hope of the absolution, we must first taste the ashes of death. Come, receive life after death in Christ Jesus, the crucified and risen Lord.
