Come and See: Why Lent and Easter Matter for Our Lives

In this conversation, Pastors Gino and Father Norm share wisdom from their own journeys of faith. Together they offer a thoughtful and down-to-earth look at the deeper meaning behind Lent and Easter, a source of hope for us all.

Have comments, questions, or want to suggest topics for discussion? Leave a comment or e-mail us at heartmatterspcast@tgmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hello, it's Father Norm. I'm here with my buddy Gino. You've probably hopefully seen a few of the sessions we've had before. Great conversations, always interesting for us too, as we connect heart to heart and as friends. And today, uh, this right now, when this is being videoed, uh, we're right now moving toward what in Christian traditions is called Holy Week, leaving up to uh Easter and that whole celebration and its meaning uh in our faith traditions and even in just being human. Uh so hey, hello Gino.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Hello. Uh it's good to be with you all again. Uh you haven't got rid of me yet. It hasn't just been Heart Matters with Father Norm. That's right. And Gino's still.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Oh, you mean I didn't say that?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

And Gino is still on me. You know, we're not. Sorry about that. No, no, no. But um, you know, I guess now that we are approaching Holy Week, um, you know, for me, I've bounced around in different traditions and been exposed to different traditions. Um, and you know, Holy Week in general is prioritized sometimes higher in the tradition or sometimes lower in the tradition. Sometimes there's elements that are there and elements that are not, but I think the heart of the message is is powerful and relevant and still, you know, uh, still uh is significant in in a lot of people's lives. And so, yeah, it's always uh uh interesting time. I think even, I mean, maybe even more now, but I feel like Easter is always like this interesting time as we start to intentionally observe, you know, uh the journey that Christ has uh from Palm Sunday to Easter.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

So yeah, and you know, uh I may have told you other folks that uh all through high school I didn't go to church anywhere. And when I really came back to church, it was uh a couple friends inviting me to come to an Easter service in the Catholic tradition, and uh and I told them at the time I wasn't going anywhere. I said, Well, it's gonna be too crowded, I'm not gonna come at Easter. Uh they invited me the very next week, and I came. And I don't know if I mentioned this before in a conversation, but uh uh I came the following week because they asked me. And I thought, well, they're good friends, uh, I should be polite, you know, I didn't come once. Now that the very amazing that they asked me a second time. We were all seniors in high school. So I went. And on that particular Sunday in the tradition, and this was the Catholic tradition, but it was the it's for some who may know it, it was the whole reality of doubting Thomas. Jesus risen, comes to the upper room, you know, Thomas is not there. Uh the disciples get all excited and they tell Thomas, oh, Jesus is risen, he's risen, and he's wait a second here, this is a bit much. I gotta see it. And then the next week Jesus comes in and lets them see his the nail prints, you know, and in the side, and hey, uh, come to believe. And and and actually Thomas said, My Lord and my God. But coming to me, I hadn't gone for a m uh for three or four years, and I if somebody asked, Well, yeah, I believe in Jesus, I grew up with that, I kind of have some sense, and I think he's a good guy, and it's probably good to love. But when I came that week, just for me, the doubting Thomas and him hearing the Lord, I mean, that spoke to me in the moment because I thought, well, you know, I was always in high school, very intellectual, very reflective, religion. I wasn't so sure about, my mom didn't go and everything, and and but but there I am, just trying to be open, first of all, to my friends and that experience, and I had this profound reality there that went deep within me. Jesus, you are real, and this part, and I I get animated when I say it. And Jesus saying, and I love you, and I I want to be in your life because I love you and I want to be with you to have the best life possible, something kind of like that. Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Yeah, no, and and you tie that back to you know, Holy Week, and like it is through that sacrifice that we are even able to have that relationship. And there's there was I was watching this video I think earlier this week on social media, and um it was a guy that was breaking down, it was actually like a uh uh rabbi, and he was breaking down the significance of all of the wounds uh of of Christ, and how um it is actually through those wounds that uh healing and restoration of the things that were lost um are restored. And so like the the curse of thorns and him taking the thorns on his on his head, um the wound in his side being redemptive of of Eve who you know initiated you know sin and into the world, um his nak his just him being naked and restoring back uh you know sh uh the lack of of shame or the absence of shame and restoration in that way, and then even the wounds in his in his feet being um significant of of how he bruises the the serpent's uh head. And so it is through those things that Christ was very intentional to be uh to uproot the very things that uh um plagued us as humanity and provide a way back so that um though there is still evil in the world, though there is still sin in the world, there's a pathway back to that relationship and that right standing with God. And um it is that truth that I think uh radically um shifts and change my heart to be um open to the fact of like that the the cost of that relationship wasn't free and um yeah that there's a way that God saw fit to restore a relationship between he and I to the point of letting his son bleed out and die and restore the very things that yeah, so yeah that that message um you probably would agree with this, uh at least for me. I'll I'll speak for myself. Um Easter was always the hardest message to preach for me.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Um not because not because the message changes, but you almost have to try to figure out a way to s preach the same thing in a yeah in a very different way. Oh, yeah, no, I identify with that in a different way. Um because the message is is still potent and powerful and and all the things, but trying to communicate it in a way that um might be different from what people actually Yeah, and let me add to that too, the other thing about Easter Message is you have a whole bunch more people at church.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yeah, and a good number of them don't come that often, but they're there and and that's good. You want to welcome them, but oh my gosh, it's almost like oh that these new people, I I gotta make it right, I gotta say it. Maybe they'll be touched by this and and come back to church or come to know Jesus for the first time, which I felt good about, but I also saw at times when I looked back, I mean it was glad that I wanted to do that, but there was some ego in that too, and I had to find fess up to that. Not that I still couldn't care and want them, but it's almost like I want them to know I'm the most inspirational pre preacher, and and I touched and made a difference in their whole life.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah. For me, I I always I would so I would think about that. I would think like, oh, there's gonna be people who are gonna show up on Sunday who may have never even stepped into a church before, maybe their family isn't like religious or doesn't have any type of foundation in their faith, or you know, all those different types of things. And I would try to shape my message for them. Yeah. Like if I was if I was just talking to them, what would be what would the message be? Let everybody else hear it, but like who who what would it what was it that they would need to hear? And so like that would oftentimes be my motivation in preparing uh those those Sunday messages, those Easter Sunday messages. But um, yeah, it is a very interesting dynamic. I think even culturally, when you break that down, I remember growing up before I really grasped the significance of Easter Sunday. The things that I observed as a kid were everybody's gonna wear their Sunday best. They're gonna get dressed up to the suits. I remember uh you know, growing up for me, it was colorful suits like yellows and purples and greens and all these different things. And uh yeah, I remember those those those moments of growing up and going to Easter Sunday having my little snap-on uh tie, my little you know, suit that I had on, and my little shiny shoes or my loafers or whatever I was wearing at the down at the time. And then I just remember as a kid sitting in the in the pews, just like looking around and seeing all the mothers with their their church hats, oh yeah. All the colorful uh suits and and the churches being packed, and oftentimes uh there was meals afterwards and things like that. And so um good memories.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Good memories, but well, you know, I'm gonna jump way back. It really will connect when I get done. That uh for me, you know, in the Catholic Church, and I know other Christian traditions too, often have a season called Lent. You know, kind of a 40-day season, mindful when Jesus went into the desert for 40 days uh at the beginning of his public ministry and experienced the evil one uh trying to tempt him and and believe in no, I the Lord God, that's my father, that's uh that's the one I stay centered in, not you. But so that 40-day period, but a lot a lot of times when Lent would start and there'd be this called for Ash Wednesday in the tradition, where uh uh you remember even ashes as a sign of repentance and and uh other aspects. But but uh but the word Lent almost every year, you know, I and I'd see if they'd remember. That's why I don't feel too bad sometimes because they don't remember what I said last year about Lent. So I don't I guess I can give the same thing. You know, but anyway, uh uh uh I'll ask you, and I wouldn't expect you to have to know. I know it because I thought of it. Do you know what the word Lent comes from? What it means?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

I forgot. I'm gonna be honest. You forgot.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yeah, that's it's been a while. Well, that's why I will be the wise one. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. The old wise. Oh, now we're gonna get into it. Okay. Don't listen, ma'am. Okay. Anyway, Lent comes from a word that means springtime.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

In fact, and and it's short the word length, because the length of days, the days are getting longer. And so it means springtime. And and I know when when I spoke, uh again in the Catholic tradition, it ev it's evolved over the years. I mean, sometimes Catholics would have seen it very negatively. Oh, this is where you have to be somber and where you have to be serious, and where you have to figure out what you're gonna give up, that you uh uh just uh show sacrifice, remembering Jesus, and some of that is good, but it could be kind of heavy. And I think one of the things that in more recent years, still still to take seriously, got the Lord's sacrificial love, but also that springtime, that it it's a season of conversion, and that conversion is about growth. And I remember one of the images because usually Lent obviously occurred sometime in which the season of spring uh was as part of it, and remind us that it's a season, it's a can it's a conversion to greater growth, to uh and to a greater springtime of your life, that the Lord wants to call you to a deeper relationship with Him, not in some heavy-handed kind of way, but in a way that says, Hey, I gave my life, I love you, and I want you to know that and find joy in that.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

When you were talking uh a thought prompted in my mind, as you as as we observe that, um that it is interesting to me that oftentimes in order to achieve that, the prescription is a pause in consumption or a pause in production. Right. And I think that I think that um especially now, um so I think in general, sometimes people look at Lent as a ritual, you know, in a very almost like a religious sense of like I need to do this because it's time to do this.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

But at the heart of it, what it's trying to get us to do is to take a pause in consumption. And to say that like maybe we're consuming too much. Like I I and I think of social media because that's like the that's the almost the entree of the day, right? Is maybe we're consuming too much and there's a time to pause to um not pr not pause so that we can produce more or so that pause so that we can live into you know more work or something, or or even more, even if the work is I'm I'm trying to do more work to become more of a better person or whatever. I don't think it's as much as that as in as it is like to pause to see who you are apart from what you're consuming, yeah, yeah. Or to see who you are apart from what you're producing. Um, and this is why I think fasting is is so fascinating. And even in the scriptures when um Jesus says when you fast, he doesn't say like if you fast. This is when you fast, because I think even in that it speaks of the necessity to be able to pause in our consumption, but also pause in our production and our or the Sabbath, right? Like it's this, and maybe even a cadence and a rhythm throughout the scriptures is this pausing and and and consumption and pausing and production, and I think it's built in that way so that we can remember who we are, yeah so that we don't fall into this sense of being um human beings. I mean that we can be human beings and not just be human doings. Um because I think our amount of what we consume via social media and media and the things that are right in our face all the time, it does have the ability to shift and change us. Um like we can have a strong foundation or uh in belief that we believe in Jesus. Um but if you're consuming ideas and things that are um almost like highlighting certain weaknesses in you or certain um maybe not even weaknesses, but certain ideas that you might also like be holding on to, like that could be that could also be something that's like not good, right? And so, yeah, it was interesting as you were speaking of of you know really achieving that that thing that Christ is trying to call us to. It's it's interesting to me that oftentimes to do that we have to pause in our consumption and pause in our production.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Yeah, and I know for me when I think about that, what do we need to let go of? I mean, on the one hand, and again, this still can be valuable for somebody and the kids and say, Well, what are you gonna give up? Well, I'm gonna give up candy. Uh I'm gonna I tell you, you ask the teenagers, how about giving up your phone? Maybe just for a day. No, no, I can't do it. Just a day. And even with some Good Friday. Maybe, you know. But here, just a kind of humorous thing. I've said this to people, and it was true, uh, and I acknowledge it. You know, I I love chocolate. I got all kind of chocolate candy and stuff. So um I said, what this is years ago. I said, okay, this is it. I'm gonna give up chocolate for all of Lent for the 40 days. That was on Ash Wednesday. Well, I messed up on what I call Ash Thursday. I uh one day later, I mean, I thought the the and then I'm guilt ridden, oh my gosh, it's almost like, what did I do to Jesus? I mean, don't go quite there. But anyway, I never did that again. Yeah. But I do know, you know, even when the and there's so many angles on on Lent and on conversion, but but I've I've seen today and even encouraged people, hey, uh uh give up uh gossiping, uh give up getting online with somebody and complaining and always being negative, uh give up uh uh uh judging people that don't look like you or act like you or have your political persuasion. You know, some of those kind of things too, along with other aspects. But yeah, those are the things that get in the way. And I know for me, uh underlying that getting up is hey, Jesus is Lord. Let you're giving up this in order to be mindful that the ultimate hope and peace and joy of your life isn't this, you and it reminds you the Lord is, and the Lord can give you and does the deeper joy and the deeper hope keeping centered in him.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yeah, I don't know if I told the story before, but uh years ago I used to have this Bible study, and it was a crazy group of characters. There was people who were gang members in there, there were people who were um, you know, Hebrew Israelite, there was people in there who were um there was lesbians, there were like just a bunch of just a group of just crazy individuals that committed to we're gonna just get together and we're gonna like go on a discipleship journey for a year. We'll just commit to and so we did that, and one of the weeks uh we chose like we're gonna fast this week. So all of us, let's go around and just say, like, well, we want to fast for just for accountability's sake. You're not gonna get in trouble if you, you know, whatever, but just for accountability's sake. So we all go around. This one guy, he says, you know what? I want to give up smoking weed. Like, I don't want, I don't wanna for the for the next week, I'm not gonna smoke weed. I was okay, great. Okay, whatever. So we go through the next week, he pops back up, and so we're going around and just giving updates. Like, how was it? Oh, it was great, whatever. Now he's chomping at the bit, he's smiling, he's like basically bobbing in the seat. He can't he can't sit still. So then we get to him and he says, Y'all would be so proud of me. He said, I didn't smoke weed one time this whole week. I was like, okay, great. I said, Well, what did you notice about? Like, what did you notice about it? He said, I drank a lot more. And I tell that story, and but then we start to dig in a little bit before I summarize that. We started to dig in a little bit, and I was like, okay, so what did you notice? He was like, I noticed that I was very um irritable, like I was very angry, and so when I would normally smoke weed, I didn't smoke weed, I actually went and I drank. And I was like, Well, maybe God's not actually trying to get He's not maybe actually God's not trying to address your weed problem, maybe He's trying to address your anger problem. And I I share that story to say, I think a lot of times when we fast, we fast from things without the intention or the intentionality of actually connecting the fact of like our attachment to that thing is actually attached to something much deeper. And so oftentimes I think we need to analyze what it is that like is really a like maybe maybe the chocolate or maybe the candy or maybe the whatever is actually just the conduit of my real problem that I really need to analyze during this time. Because I don't think that God is after our chocolate. And I don't think the God is after you know our our things. I think that those are the fruit of some of some heart, you know, some heart problems. And if we're not careful, we'll take something and we'll just sub it out for something else, right? So chocolate might go away, but then You know.

unknown 22:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Something else is going to fill it.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Well, I'm real glad that you said I don't have to give up my childhood. I don't ever want to feel guilty again. Right. But here's another thing. In the early church, uh uh when people were coming into the early Christian community, uh, adults and their children sometimes, that often at that Easter season, because it emphasized the new life being uh emerged into great life. During that time in Lent, if people were then being formed, okay, they're they just heard about this Christian community, you hear what wonderful things they are. They come in, they come into the church, okay. The formation, the uh in the early stages, churches would often call that Lent period a period of enlightenment and purification. And the reason I bring that up from what you said is enlightenment. Because it was about the time, and even we still in the Catholic Church will often have people go through a retreat and through a spiritual journey in Lent. Enlightenment. What do you need to see deeper within yourself, like what you brought up? Is it about chocolate or is it about anger? That self-awareness that that is so key, you know, and an honest look at yourself. And if you if you can believe from that, hey, I'm a beloved child of God, I can look at myself honestly. I don't have to deny it or run away from it because I'm gonna feel bad. No, because I'm still loved by by this God who sees all of that. And and so that enlightenment, uh, a lot of times it's almost like some Christian counseling with folks, just okay, let's let's go deeper and what's happening, and what what do you think you need to work on? Like I can remember uh one fellow at that time just talked about what hit him in his enlightenment is with his family, there were some difficulties and stuff, but he saw that anything that was amiss in the family, he always blamed his wife or everybody else, but not himself. And this awareness through time of looking at what's inside you he he confronted that. And of course, then confronting it at the same time uh saying, okay, and the Lord loves you. You know, he wants to free you up from that. You don't have to put yourself down and grovel in guilt, maybe in appreciation. And Lord, thank you that I'm aware of that, and at the same time, you've forgiven me for that. And then purification was just be purified in your in the way you live that out, and God's grace will be there for you. It isn't you doing something for God, but letting the Lord do something in you and through you for you.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Amen. Yeah, amen. And I think that's important for people to hear because I think people get so caught up in the sin aspect, but like identifying sin, like how people oftentimes identify sin is not actually sin. They identify it as the fruit of sin. So they think about drunkenness, or they think about addiction, or they think about whatever, but those are like fruits of a deeper problem. Like it's never about alcohol, it's just about what is alcohol actually covering up. What is what is alcohol doing? Like, how is that self-medicating or how is it replacing what Christ has already offered you, right? And so it's always those, those, those things. One of my favorite scriptures is John chapter three, not just 16, but 17 through the rest of the chapter, and essentially it just says that the verdict, he says, this is the verdict, that Christ has come into the world, but people love their darkness, right? And they won't they won't come into the light for fear that their deeds would be exposed. I think that's the difference, is like it's the the the decision to walk into the light knowing that I'm going to be exposed, and I'm not gonna feel shame about that exposure. But I'm going to be honest about it, and I'm going to let Christ clean me, and I'm going to walk that out and live that out, however in all in authenticity in authenticity, and not something that I feel like I'm obligated to do, or there's a you know, a tradition or something that that's holding me to do these things, but like I want to do these things for me so that I can be connected to God and because I am connected to God be the best version of myself.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

You know, yeah. I know we're wrapping up.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Yeah, let me uh uh one other thing, and this I'm just tying this in with Catholic tradition, but not in a way to say, hey, this is the way. But I remember, because people may not remember here or know that I didn't grow up Catholic, but when I eventually became Catholic, and I remember one of the difficulties for me, and I could imagine for anybody who doesn't come out of the tradition, was the cross that's always in Catholic churches with Jesus on the cross. And I remember thinking from my growing up, he shouldn't be on the cross because he's risen. So the it should be an empty cross, like a lot of churches are, which make a good point. He is risen. So for me, well, why are they putting it and leaving it on the cross? And uh and then I remember I was probably 19 or 20, and and you know, saying, yeah, I should be the one to help them take cross, take Jesus off the cross and just have the risen Christ. But a woman, I I I talked to a woman about that who seemed older, she was in her 60s, now I feel like she's younger, but it's all relative. But anyway, she said to me, she kind of put me in my place. She said, Well, she said, Father Norm, no. She said, as a as a Catholic or as a Christian, when I see Jesus on the cross, I don't see, oh yeah, he suffered and he agonized and I did this to him with sin. She said, I see it a couple things. She said, one, that Jesus, when I look at that cross, Jesus knows the suffering I go through. He he went through it. It's not like he can't have any understanding. But she said, the bigger reason for me, I don't see suffering or pain for my sin. I see a God through Jesus saying, This is how much I love you. I give my all to you. Wow, that gave me another look. And it does remind you, whether it's on the cross or not on the cross, how you view something and and does it touch your faith in your heart in here? Because that it was not only the woman said that, you could see that was everything for her.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Yeah. It's tree to tree. Yeah. Right? It's the from the tree of Adam and Eve to the tree of Christ and the restoration and the the healing and the relationship that comes from that is uh it is enough motivation to live into the light for the rest of your days, right? Um so yeah, I know we're wrapping up. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Um any last words for folks as they prepare to Well, I I know, and some may watch this right around this season or not, but just uh that whole thing that, and we've said this before, that God and and faith at its best and Christianity at its best wants us to live a vital life. And and and wants us to experience, in a sense, the springtime of living with a faith that says, wow, life life is so precious now and it's gonna go on forever in Christ, and that's wonderful too.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Yeah. Um I would say uh God loves you. Um and I know that sounds probably cliche cliche, and uh you probably heard that before, but if you really break down the implications and the reality of that love, I promise you it will radically change your life. And that's for people who may not be in faith, or those might be people who've been in the faith for 60 years. Um you know that truth uh that God loves you uh in spite of you, in spite of your insecurities, in spite of your shortcomings, in spite of those things that God still loves you. I think that that that never gets old. It never gets old, it's still as powerful as the first day I ever heard it. And uh yeah, hope that that truth um resonates uh somewhere deep inside you today, and that it calls you forth to um investigate the reality of what that means.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

So, and I say thank you, and certainly be open to sharing this with someone else. Uh we all need to hear this message and be reminded of it. Thanks for watching and sharing us right here, right now.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Yeah. Happy Resurrection Sunday.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Amen.