Lent

Some things must die before other better things arise. Jesus understood the dynamics of the spiritual life and He related that life to things we could understand. He said: “Very truly, I tellyou, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). From a single seed you get a whole plant yielding many seeds for food and nourishment. But the single seed must first “die”—be placed in the ground, buried—before it germinates and grows. Spiritually speaking, so must we.

Lent began today—Ash Wednesday. I recommend that we embrace Lent for what it really is: a tool for strengthening our spiritual life. Following the example of Our Lord, the ancient church understood that a forty day period of focused discipline helps us to concentrate on that dying which Jesus spoke about. Lent isn’t merely about “giving up” something; it’s about dying to oneself, about actively putting to death those character flaws that get in the way of our relationship with God and with one another. But how do we address character flaws that overwhelm us with their enormity? Here is where the disciplines—including the “giving up” of stuff—come in. Lent affords us a reasonable time to concentrate on allowing Christ to redirect our lives in an intensive and intentional way by taming our appetites and drives as a way of dealing with our habitual sins and flaws.

When we choose to fast from meals, meats, or sweets, we are saying to ourselves, “My body does not have control over my life, over who I am much less over whose I am.” Fasting or other forms of discipline free us from the tyranny of making the old excuse, “Well, that’s just who I am and there’s nothing I can do about it.” The disciplines of Lent help us to deal with our negative attitudes and behaviors where they originate: with our poor spiritual condition. When we are far from God, we are close to sin. And this situation grieves our God. The Bible says, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Eph.4:30-32).

The disciplines of Lent are not ultimately about behavioral modification. They are not a program of sin management, much less are they techniques of psychological adjustment. The disciplines of Lent are about death and new life, the journey from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday. This six-week slice out of our year is but a metaphor of our life’s journey here on earth. When we practice the disciplines of Lent, we rehearse the disciplines of the Christian life. When we practice the disciplines of the Christian life, we prepare ourselves for that quality of life which is the Kingdom of God characterized by “righteousness, and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). Only then does the visible quality of our life together, as well as our personal spiritual condition, change. And the fruit of the Spirit yields that authentic community which arises when each one of us dies to ourselves and rises with Christ to new life. This then is the purpose of Lent. Lent the resource. Lent the tool for becoming more like Christ who died and rose again so that we too might die to sin and rise to new life—as individuals and as a Community.

Hear again Jesus’ words as rendered by Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in The Message:

“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal” (John 12:24-25, The Message).

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.