That is what the upcoming season of Lent is about. But without a little military background, you might not know how foreboding, far-reaching, how significant those three little words are.
The date is December 19, 1944. The place is, Noville, Belgium. That won’t mean much to you until you know it’s a suburb of Bastogne, and the event is the Battle of the Bulge, and it’s just getting started.
First Lieutenant Al Hassenzahl has just passed the house where his battalion commander had been killed by a German artillery shell coming through the window. The Germans have counterattacked driving the lieutenant’s men off the ridge. In his own words Hassenzahl writes, “’We were forced to withdraw to the outskirts of Noville. There we set up a perimeter defense and our orders were to hold Noville at all costs.’”[i]
Do you know what “at all costs” means? It means no surrender; no retreat. It means you keep on firing till your last cartridge is used and then it’s hand-to-hand. It means you fight till the last man is dead or out of commission. It is a harrowing order to the man who gives it and to the men who take it. They all know what it means.
The Passion History which I hope you read through each Lent is Jesus holding on to the salvation of all mankind “at all costs”. To him. None to you. Remember that before even reaching Jerusalem He gives predictions of His Passion three times. Sure they all end with Him rising but before that there is His rejection, suffering, and dying. Behind the scenes there is even more. And He knows this – all.
“At all costs.” Just what does it cost to pay for the sins of a world of sin and sinfulness? Just what does it cost to satisfy the wrath of God? We who cower, quail, and pee ourselves at the thought of a boss, a parent, a loved one being “mad” about the terrible thing we have done, cannot even imagine the wrath of God against sins and sinners. “All costs” to Jesus is all His blood, body, and soul. “All costs” to the eternal God means there’s eternal hell to pay.
And Jesus paid it all. He drained the last dregs of the cup of God’s wrath. He suffered the last full measure for our sins. He left it all out on that miserable little hill outside of Jerusalem. His beaten, bloody, pierced body was taken down from that cross and the last of the all costs to be paid was to be stuck in a stone-cold tomb.
This is reason for celebration. Because Jesus paid “at all costs” there is none left for us to pay. Our ashes on our forehead are tokens, signs, reminders that one day these mortal coils will decay back to which God handmade them from because they are sinful, fallen, tainted, ruined. But we don’t die and these bodies don’t decay to pay for our sins. At all costs never, ever believe that. No, they decay, so we might rise in a body redeemed, restored, forgiven. At all costs, this believe. Amen.
[i] This comes from the book The Battling Bastards of Bastogne (85), given to me by a veteran of this battle weeks before he died. I hope to write more about this soon.
