Through the Lenten window
the loudspeaker blares “Repent and Believe.”
We light our candle and try to see through the darkness.
The loudspeaker won’t stop:
Repent and believe. Repent and believe. Repent
and believe.
On and on and on and on.
In the distance through the noise
Jesus is speaking.
Suffer. Rejection. Death. Rise in three days.
Peter’s voice now through the loudspeaker,
over the voice of Jesus.
“God forbid it, Lord. This must never happen to you.”
Then the One who had earlier called Peter the Rock
on whom he would build his Church,
now calls Peter Satan! Get behind me, Satan!
Peter, a stumbling block, worldly, not godly.
Peter who had followed Jesus immediately,
fiercely, faithfully,
Peter who knew Jesus, Peter who called Jesus the Messiah,
This Peter was now a stumbling block to the One whom he
so fervently loved!
Repent and believe! Repent and believe!
Through the Lenten window we cry out:
We love you fervently, too!
But our voices make no noise.
All we hear is Repent and believe!
Jesus has called Peter Satan.
Our eyes look down the road to that day in the courtyard
of Caiaphas
when once more Peter will say: I do not know him.
What is it we will say when these 40 days are gone?
What will we say in that courtyard?
The loudspeaker stops.
Jesus is speaking:
Who do you say that I am?
Our eyes look down, wishing we weren’t here,
yet he speaks to us in the crowd
his eyes compelling us to look and to listen:
If you want to follow me,
lose your lives in feeding my sheep.
But we do we do we do we do.
We do feed your sheep.
We in the church are good about feeding sheep.
All you have to do, Jesus, is to look at
the Church budget
to see how many sheep have been fed.
Funny it was Peter who said to the crowd
to hell with your money.
Later, of course, Peter was preaching,
preaching the good news,
the good news that God is with us.
Why is it so hard for us to believe that?
The earth is filled with the tears of God, for all
over the world
the children of God are hating,
hurting,
killing each other.
The suffering is immense, unbearable,
but the Church cannot find its voice.
The blood of the dead splats against our faces;
the maimed scream into our hearts;
we cover our eyes and listen
but our ears hear the droning of the death count rising.
How awful, we whisper,
then turn back to our quarreling.
You would think we could weep.
When my father felt there was no longer a free pulpit
from which he could speak, he resigned.
He said that the greatest temptation came
from well meaning good friends
who begged him to compromise.
I believe in compromise, he said,
but the gospel cannot be compromised
Oh, Peter, the gospel can’t be compromised.
Oh, Church, the gospel cannot be compromised!
Follow me and you will see me suffer.
His eyes bore into our souls. You will also suffer
for my sake.
By the world’s standards you may not be successful,
but the word of God is not about worldly success;
it’s about Jesus and covenant faithfulness.
The earth is filled with the tears of God,
but the earth is also filled with the people of God,
as many as all the stars in the sky.
It was the covenant promise to Abraham and Sarah
and they believed … descendents more than all the
stars in the sky.
They believed. They believed
With all those stars in our covenant sky,
surely the voice of the Church of the Prince of Peace
will be heard.
Surely!
Through our Lenten window we begin to see Light.
He looks at us, those eyes piercing into our souls.
Follow me, he says.
Ann Weems of St. Louis, Mo., is a best-selling poet-writer, speaker, and conference leader. She is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Her works include Kneeling in Bethlehem, Kneeling in Jerusalem, and Psalms of Lament.
