We have a lot of holidays to mention this morning. 

First of all, there’s Mardi Gras, which we’ll celebrate in great Protestant style by eating pancakes at church rather than by drinking bourbon on Bourbon Street or any other street down in New Orleans…although we did spring for a band.  

Of course, in a few days, we’re looking at the double header of Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, which land on the same day this year.  

People who run in my particular circles have been trying to think about ways to we might tie those together.  

I had a pastor colleague who was thinking about getting some candy hearts custom made for her worship service. 

Her thought was to have them say things like, “UR dust.” That was one.  She also had “JC4eva”, “Luv God”, and “Ash Me.”

She was considering one that just said: “Give up” – though everyone talked her out of that one.   

But wait, wait: in terms of holidays, we’re not done yet. 

Let’s not forget that, between the pancakes this morning and the chocolates on Wednesday, later today we have Superbowl Sunday. 

That’s tonight, and although it is not a church holiday or even a civic holiday, it is an event, nonetheless. 

I don’t know if you’re tracking the romantic relationship between the mega mega superstar singer-songwriter-and-all-around-one-woman-phenomenon, Taylor Swift and the tight end of the Kansas City Chiefs, Travis Kelce, who is…uh…good at his job, too, I guess. 

Taylor Swift is in the midst of an unbelievable world tour, which is currently in Japan.  

Since around noon yesterday, though, the Internet has been following the progress of her personal jet, which was scheduled to take off from Haneda airport at 10:30 p.m., Japan Standard Time, on Saturday night and then fly the 5500 miles across the Pacific to Las Vegas in time for kick off. 

Even Taylor Swift is doing whatever it takes to be at the Superbowl.  

Of course, I like to think that if anyone from our church found themselves in Japan, wrapping up a sold-out stadium concert, they would still make sure that their jet was gassed up and ready to go so they would make it back in time for Ash Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. in the chapel.  

 I mean, it makes sense because: who knows? This might be the year.

This might be the year…when Lent’s call to seek growth and new energy in resisting temptation…its call to get closer to God, its call to practice noticing and responding to those in need…might really take root in us.  

This might be the year…when Lent’s call for Christians to demand accountability of earthly authorities for their commitment to the Common Good and to a more thorough and challenging form of justice…might really take root in us. 

This might be the year…when we’ll take our cue from Lent’s call to remember those who are sick, struggling, or grieving, not only in our prayers but also in our texts, our emails, our phone calls, cards, and visits, as a way of honoring and offering the love and comfort of Jesus.  

This might be the year…when our hearts get bigger and our consciences more tender and our commitment firmer. 

Lent has always understood itself as kicking off like the Superbowl…as having some of that same urgency. 

As Lent looks ahead to its own contest, it imagines much the same sense of drama, except that in this one, the grappling involved is mostly us with ourselves.  

So as we think of Taylor Swift winging her way to Las Vegas in this elaborate gesture of getting there…being there…well, clearly, what she’s up to is part Mardi Gras party and part Valentine’s smooch. 

But I wonder if it’s also a chance for us to consider the very Lenten questions of what we, for our own part, would be prepared to give up in the name of love—and, relatedly, of how widely we would seek to draw the circle of those we deem deserving of our own attention and care.    

What—who—would get us on that plane?  Alternatively, what would convince us that it’s fine to stay far, far away? 

That’s where Lent begins.  

Its purpose is to get us to see those boundaries more clearly, and to expand them, at least a little.  

The church has always found great hope in that. 

II.

In the coming weeks, the assigned readings for Sunday will not sound especially hopeful.  

Luke’s Gospel describes Jesus as coming down from the mountain of his transfiguration and setting his face “like flint,” it says, “toward Jerusalem.” 

His determination grows as he gets closer and closer, and a change is clearly in the air, because many of the crowds whom we’ve been told early on had gathered to follow him and tagged along from place to place will quietly break away.  

Each morning at dawn, there will be fewer than they’d seen at the previous dusk.  

But in fairness, it was all starting to feel different.  

What had been sort of happy-go-lucky was abruptly seeming a lot less happy and a lot less lucky. 

They’d all noticed those folks watching at the edges at each stop…the ones who clearly weren’t into it…standing back, listening intently with their arms folded and their eyebrows knit.  

These weren’t the kind of people to forgive and forget, and once they started showing up, more and more each time, and once they showed they had Jesus on their radar, well, you didn’t have to be a genius to know it wasn’t going to last much longer.  

The gospels want us to understand very clearly how this story that began with such enthusiasm and joy gets so quickly to Good Friday—and we will.  

But this morning, all that is still yet to come.   

Instead, as we stand on the threshold of Lent, we tell the story of the Transfiguration—this story when, almost like a king in disguise, Jesus seems almost to uncloak and reveal his true identity to his closest disciples.  

Way at the very beginning of Mark’s Gospel, Mark describes the baptism of Jesus and reports that as Jesus comes up from under the water, the heavens open, and the spirit descends, and a voice declares to Jesus “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” 

Now on the mountaintop, the clouds seem to thicken rather than part, but again, there is the voice, saying, “This is my son, the beloved…” 

The next phase is beginning. 

And now, in addition to Jesus dressed in a white so dazzling that it cannot be earthly, there are Moses and Elijah—the father of the law and the greatest of the prophets, keeping company with Jesus. 

For the disciples, it was like nothing they had ever seen, and they wouldn’t see anything like it until after the resurrection. 

In fact, it was so overwhelming that, to tell the truth, it was more terrifying than glorious. 

We’re blessed that we have Lent to take stock of ourselves and move slowly in the direction of expanding our boundaries.  

By contrast, the three disciples who go up on the mountain with Jesus have their whole world suddenly thrown open. 

They see him with a sudden clarity, and then, in a flash, they see themselves with that same clarity and realize just how far from dazzling they really are.  

The question of just what they will give up for love and what they won’t, and the question of how widely they’re prepared to draw the circle of their own concern – these drop them to their knees. 

And yet we tell the story not out of judgment, but out of hope.  

We tell it, not because their stories are complete, but because they aren’t.  

Just as our stories are not complete.  

And yet there is such grace to be found in the reckoning.  

There is such strength to be formed in struggling. 

There is such love to be shared in growing.  

And it’s not too late.  

This is what lies just ahead for them, and, I think also, for all those who seek to learn from Lent.  

So in this Mardi Gras/Superbowl/Valentine’s/Ash Wednesday season, may we rejoice in more than just the fun of rejoicing.  

May we rejoice in the love with that power to make all things clear and all things new.  

Amen.