LENT: All Uphill from Here!

In a sermon on the First Sunday of Lent, I asked a rhetorical question: “So, one week into it, how’d y’all do?” Now, St George is a far cry from a “shouting church” but, several people yelled out:
Good! or Not bad!

I didn’t feel the need to ask the same question on the Fourth Sunday. I knew You know the answer. So, it seems, does the Church.

Our Boy Scout Troop used to play “Kick the Can” — a suped up version of hide-n-seek which involves prisoners, boredom etc. My friends Jimmy, Scott and I weren’t interested in the game as much as we were in the hiding — as in getting lost and exploring — part. In other words, as soon the activity began, we usually headed down to the railroad tracks to walk, talk, and sing.

(We figured they’d let us know when the game was over.)

One day, we must have had a lot to talk about, we walked a long, long way down the railroad tracks till we discovered a very steep embankment …

But of course. We had to climb it.

Did I mention the steep part?

We scrambled up the precipice at first, unhindered by fear. A little further and it got really terrifying exciting. Higher still and …

Uh oh.

We looked down. Way down. Then we looked up. Straight up.

We were stuck; afraid. We couldn’t go back down (and we saw no possibility of moving upward).

So there we sat. For a long. Long. Time.

We talked about our fears, possible strategies, worst case scenarios … our dads. We pretty much freaked ourselves out. Truth be known, although we were 12 or so, we may have even cried (in a manly Boy Scout fashion, mind you).

We sat there for all eternity a long time. We were so far from HQ that there was no way we could hear the adult yell that would signify time’s up. It didn’t matter anyhow. (Did I mention we were stuck?)

Suddenly, Jimmy found some deep seated courage and took off scrambling to the top of the small mountain. It was precarious … but he made it. We were happy for him. No way we were going to emulate him, though. We were fine right where we were, thank you: stuck, scared, and miserable.

That is … until we saw, way off in the distance, two figures making their way down the tracks in our direction.

Oh my Guh …

We looked up: Jimmy yelling encouragement. We also heard, faintly due to distance, voices encouraging us to come down.

Y’all? There was no way we were going back down. We’d made it this far …

So we did what any 12 year old male does in a jam … we sat there breaking twigs and throwing pebbles and waiting for courage.

The two shapes in the distance? Yup. Scout Masters.

Courage was slow in coming; in other words, the adults got there before it kicked in. And, it seemed to our adolescent minds that one of the men — in his 40’s with quite a mid-life paunch — was headed up the hill. (I can still see him flapping his arms and wiggling the invisible Hula Hoop as he meandered baby steps. Now, myself his age, I know better. He had no intention hope of actually arriving — he just wanted to scare us into thinking he was coming up the cliff!)

Jimmy yelling … old man coming … stuck on the side of Mt Kilimanjaro.

Suddenly, without a word, Scott and I turned our faces upward and scrambled toward the top as if our life depended on it. Our fear was transformed into life-saving (if not fool-hearted) energy and … well, We did it!

Which brings me round to this point — where you and I are right now — over the half-way mark in the Great Fast.

The Church knows our struggle, our weaknesses and shortcomings. For this reason, She not only appoints Sunday’s Gospel passage … but commemorates St John of the Ladder.

About the Ladder of Divine Ascent, St John says (and I’m paraphrasing here): Do not despair at all the hesychasts and anchorites who have made it before you … You are following the First Martyr! Do not grow faint hearted from your falls, for they only show how much you are in need of the Physician.

In a way, we’re all sittin’ there on that hill. Our struggles have caused us discomfort, doubt, wounds and discouragement. The thought may even have occurred: “Why bother?”

But, brothers and sisters, we’ve made it this far. We have a great cloud of witnesses who’ve gone before us, cheering us on — not only toward our present Pascha, but to the Eternal Banquet.

And that lion that pretends to be ascending the hill after us? Have no fear; our Lord has defanged him. He just wants us to lose heart.

Let us, having passed the midpoint of the Great Fast, persevere in faith — not being discouraged by our falls and illnesses, but with encouragement and healing offered by the Physician of our souls!

Through the prayers of St John of the Ladder, and all the Saints, O Lord be merciful to us and save us!

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