Why I Love Lent
February 9th, 2007 » posted by Sarah
I love Lent! I know I’m getting ahead of myself since Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, isn’t until February 21. But we’re getting close and I’m looking forward to it.
Here’s Lent’s reputation: bummer of a season. You know, it’s all heavy and penitential and means giving up things we love (chocolate, wine, t.v., whatever). And fasting. What’s fun about fasting?
But here’s the reality: Lent is a gift from God. How so? Because Lent is a time of intense concentration and renewed immersion in our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ. Think of it as a camera lens. Pentecost, which goes from Pentecost Sunday until the first Sunday in Advent, is a wide-angle lens, a time of broad focus on the life and work of the Church. Advent is the family photo album, all of us gathered and preparing to celebrate the birth of the infant Jesus. In Christmastide and Epiphany the lens is trained on the early life and work of Jesus, and then in Lent, the lens zooms in for a tight focus on our relationship with the God who made, loves, and sustains us.
Lent is a time for us to strip away the accumulated layers of things that distract us from what’s at the core of our very being–the gospel news that God who loves us beyond all imagining has reached out, taken hold of us, and won’t let go. That’s what Jesus is all about, God’s gift of drawing us back to God’s self in spite of all we’ve done and do to put distance in between us. And Lent is really about focusing on that distance, on the ways we continue to turn away from God and on our need and desire to turn back.
Which brings me to fasting and giving things up. We don’t fast or give things up because doing so will make us better people. Lent is not, and I repeat not, a self-improvement project. We fast and give things up as a disciplined way of turning back to God. The reality is that it’s hard to go without food or without things we enjoy. And it is precisely that difficulty and struggle that help us recognize the reality of our own sin and our own need to repent. Not that the pain of going without a few meals or without chocolate matches the depth of the pain we cause God when we sin. That’s not the point. The point is that Lenten disciplines are another form of prayer, a way of incorporating our whole body and life in our return to God.
There are a lot of ways to observe Lent. Fasting on certain days (Wednesdays and Fridays are the traditional fast days in Lent) is one possibility. Fasting from things besides food is another. We can fast from consumerism, for instance, or from t.v.-watching. We can also take something on as a Lenten discipline, like setting aside time for prayer each day of the season, or reading the Scriptures appointed for each day (you can find the daily lessons at www.satucket.com/lectionary and the Book of Common Prayer at http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/bcp.htm). There are a number of good devotional books meant to be read during Lent – try Martin Smith’s A Season for the Spirit, for instance. We can even sign up for daily meditations to be delivered right to our email in-box (see www.episcopalchurch.org/49485_80731_ENG_HTM.htm for info.).
This is just a starter list – I’d love to hear what you’ve done or are thinking of doing as your way of observing Lent, so please send word. And in the meantime, here’s something to keep in mind: if Lent is a lens, it’s a lens focused on Easter. We don’t go through Lent just for the sake of going through Lent, but for the sake of getting ready for the very best news in the whole world ever – the news that the tomb is empty, the night is over, the Son of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is risen!
I love Lent.
Blessings,
Sarah+
February 21st, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Perhaps it is a sign of growing older, but with each passing year, I look forward to and become more appreciative of Lent. In many respects, it is a “gift season” during which the Christian can venture inward and give deeper scrutiny to areas of the spirit that he or she would prefer to ignore but can not if that Christian seeks to change and be closer to God. While I recognize that abstaining from favorite foods may be particularly important for some in the lenten observance, over the years I have moved from food to the less “tangible” but no less significant concerns and habits that need examination and even elimination. I am the member of a church that provides many liturgical opportunities for the observance of Lent, therefore my fellow parishioners and I have many services from which to choose throughtout these forty days. I have obtained various reading materials pertaining to Lent and include them in my daily devotions. I abstain from using the internet on Sundays. New this year for me will be “giving up” wearing jewelry, including my wristwatch. I adore jewelry and realized that I am to a large degree too attached to it; to be unadorned for forty days will for me signify a glimpse into the truth of human existence in that we come into this life with nothing and likewise do we leave it. Like many professionals (I am a teacher), I am a slave to time, often worrying inordinately about schedules and punctuality and rushing to be at the next place. Leaving my watch behind now obliges me to think about God’s time, moving from “chronos” to “kairos.” I become dependent on others by asking them what time it is, rely on my intuition and the “feel” of the day to determine the hour. It is both a little frightening and liberating to “let go” in this manner. And of course, all of this, with God’s help, will be helped along by prayer and meditation.
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Wow, I’m really struck by the beauty of the new Lenten disciplines you’ve taken on. Each one gets at what’s probably #1 on the top ten list of sins we’re most likely to commit: idolatry. We humans have a tendency to make idols of all sorts of things and to allow our view of them to obscure our view of God.
I, too, am a fan of jewelry and have been ever since I was little. And while it’s fine to enjoy beautiful things–God delights in His Creation, after all, and created Leviathan for the sport of it (Psalm 104:27)–you are right that we can get too attached to them. I love your idea of giving up wearing jewelry as a way of focusing on the truth that we are dust and to dust we shall return (and hope you won’t mind if I borrow it!).
And, boy oh boy, do many of us ever make an idol of time, of ‘chronos,’ as you so eloquently noted. Your giving up wearing a watch is not only a way of being more mindful of God’s time, of His ‘kairos’, but of learning better what it means to trust in God’s work instead of your own. *And* on top of all that, it’s also drawing you into community and into a deeper awareness of the day.
‘Letting go’is a great way to describe what Lenten disciplines help us do. Faith requires a lot of letting go: of our sense of self-reliance; of things we do that cloud our awareness of God; of our need to feel in control. And it is frightening to let go of those things because they give us a sense of security. But, then, being a disciple of Jesus Christ isn’t about a false sense of security, but about things that are much deeper and richer, things like grace, and joy, and blessing.
I pray your Lent will be full of grace and joy. And may God bless you on your journey, now and always.
Your sister in Christ,
Sarah+