Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday. This marks the beginning of the lenten season.  This is the time of year that many Christians around the world choose to sacrifice something in their lives for a period of 40 days, not including Sundays.  For me, it wasn't a tradition growing up.  I never really considered it, in fact I had no idea that the season existed.  The first time I participated in lent was in college and chose to give up soda.  Going cold turkey on a Mountain Dew addiction is bad.  Trust me.  This became a bit of tradition after that and my typical resolution was to give up soda.  Unfortunately, this really didn't honor the spirit of lent and my soda-fast became no different than a new year's resolution, it just had a different start date and had a specific end date in sight.  More importantly I was no different after having done it.  I would often finish lent successful in having not consumed a single soda, only to find that my relationship with God had been left unaltered by the experience.  This year I decided to try and recover a bit of the spirit of lent and to get a glimpse into what it looks to truly celebrate it.

The tradition of lent is done out of the desire to join with Christ in his 40 days in the wilderness.  During those 40 days, he fasted, which is why Christians who celebrate lent often choose to give up some sort of food during this time.  This is all well and good, but I think it still misses the point, at least it has for me.  Jesus may have fasted from food, but he feasted upon the word of God.  There is no doubt that this time was a pivotal moment for Jesus where he was able to simply be with the Father.  There were no distractions and nothing could come between him and a deeper relationship with God.  It should be no surprise then, that Satan's first temptation of Jesus is met with the statement, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."  Jesus had spent those 40 days in prayer before the Father.  Conversing with him and laying baring all of his thoughts.  His statement here is based on the reality of his experience.  He has been sustained during that time by the very word of God and had become completely dependent on Him.  

Now it also says that at the end of those 40 days, Jesus was hungry.  It was at that moment that he encounters the devil who had come to tempt him.  This hunger that Jesus has is the hunger pains of starvation.  His body would have actually been breaking down at this point.  And so when the devil comes to him, Jesus is acting from a position of strength, having been nourished by God, but also a place of utter vulnerability.  Here is where I think the spirit of Lent leads us.  It leads us to expose our own vulnerabilities and lay them bare before Him.  In doing so, we find true dependence on God.

You see sacrifice is only one side of the lenten coin, cultivating dependence on God is the other.  Our sacrifice lacks meaning when it does not drive us to depend on him.  It becomes just another resolution that we keep for a limited time, only to be forgotten the moment our goal has been reached.  So what is it that you need to let go of?  What is it that distracts you and causes you to rely on your own strength rather than depending on God?  We all have something.  For me, it is my studies.  I constantly feel a need to be perfect and it becomes less and less about dependence on God and more and more about me and what I can do.  So for me, my practice this season will be to write daily, to take time that could be spent doing schoolwork and just write.  It is a practice that for me, helps to reveal a part of my heart, to be vulnerable and open to others, and it requires a deep dependence on God, both for the material and for the time it takes to write it.  I encourage you to join with me in devoting this lenten season in rediscovering those themes of vulnerability and dependence on God.  May we join with Christ in the wilderness that we might come back refreshed, renewed, and  ready to offer hope and restoration to a broken world.