Pastors Corner - Being both a lion and a lamb

March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.

I learned this bit of wisdom when I was in early grade school, coloring a calendar for the transitional month copied onto a piece of green paper.

My teacher explained how this meant that typically at the beginning, the month would be full of blustery wind like a lion’s roar. By its end, it would be gently peaceful, like a lamb lying down in a now-green meadow as spring had officially begun.

Yet, I would soon wonder how true it was, growing up in the Northwest. More often than not, it seemed March would go just as gusty and nasty as it had arrived.

Lion and lamb just could not seem to co-exist in March, it seemed.

I did not grow up in a Christian household so it took me until adulthood to learn that in the person of Jesus Christ, there is one who exists as both lion and lamb.

While March is still young, in the church we will be confronted with this reality early. March 6 marks Ash Wednesday, traditionally a day to be reminded of our inescapable mortality. It begins the preparatory, reflective and penitential season of Lent, 40 days (plus Sundays) of journeying with Jesus, the lion and the lamb, to the cross.

Jesus’ paradoxical identity as these two creatures is revealed in various ways along that path. The Gospel of Luke tells us the powers-to-be will seek to slaughter him like a lamb (13:31). He will roar back at the devil triumphantly (4:1-13) and be greeted in the royal city as a victorious king (19:28-40). Yet he will become like the Passover sacrifice and die (22:14-23:56) before the awe-inspiring miracle of his resurrection (24:1-12).

Lent does not conclude in March but rather after more than two-thirds of April has passed. It takes more than a month (really it takes a lifetime!) to reveal what makes the unique figure of Christ the complex conquering “Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5:5) who is also the “Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12).

Our culture tends to value the traditional strength of the lion and does not know what to do with the lamb. However, God shows us the quiet and disruptive power of the lamb, if we will look to God and see glory unfold in unlikely fashion and upset the powers-that-be.

You are welcomed to enter in to this story and go out from it forever changed.

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The Rev. Sean Janssen is pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church, Havre, and Christ Lutheran Church, Big Sandy