"Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come newar; repent, and believe in the good news." -Mark 1:14-15
A friend of mine has two kids that attend a Catholic school. They had been talking about Lent at school and how they should pick something to give up. The kids came home very excited to tell Mom what they were giving up for Lent. The older of the two, who is in second grade, said that he was going to give up his Wii games. Then the kindergartner proudly announced that he was going to give up reading. His mother then had to explain why he couldn’t actually give up reading for Lent; perhaps the concept is lost on children that age.
Actually, perhaps the concept is lost on most of us. The idea of giving something up for lent comes from the practice of fasting. The purpose of the traditional Lenten fast was to have a physical reminder of Christ’s suffering and sacrifice for us. With every twinge of hunger, is a reminder of God.
We have strayed far from this reminder with the practice we now have, which is giving up anything and everything that we think isn’t good for us. Some people give up chocolate, caffeine, alcohol, or other consumable substances; other people give up some sort of technology, game, or other activity that is a distraction. But I wonder how much of these things are really a sacrifice, and if we are thinking at all about God when we desire to have them back? Add to that the ritual of telling everyone proudly what we have given up, and I’m fairly certain we have missed the point altogether. It seems to be, for many a self-improvement ritual rather than a spiritual practice.
I will say that resisting temptation is an admirable goal, one that we can all improve on a little and one that I believe is pleasing to God. The story of Jesus temptation speaks to the reality of Satan tempting humanity. Immediately after Jesus is declared the Son of God, he is tempted by Satan. Even the Son of God is tempted by glory and the possibility that he is someone above the rest. But the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness is here not only to tell us that Jesus was tempted just as we are; it is here to tell us that he did something different. He resisted temptation. The devil did not win this game. Jesus, with the strength of God, was able to resist everything that was tempting to him.
The idea that we can resist temptation just as Jesus did is, frankly, arrogant. Or at the very least, misguided. The fact that Jesus underwent temptation, speaks to its reality in our lives. The devil is ever-present tempting us with glory, power, riches, pleasure, and most importantly the idea that we are good enough without God. So we create more rules, ones that are easier to follow, to prove to ourselves that we can resist temptation. We do it for our own benefit. We go through six weeks avoiding whatever our representation of temptation is, and at the end congratulate ourselves for a job well done, going right back to whatever we were doing before this journey began.
If you have given something up for Lent, I am not discouraging you from following through with this practice. In fact, I find fasting to be an incredibly meaningful practice and I encourage you to try it sometime, but when we choose to fast, we need to focus properly. Question what benefit it has for you spiritually to go through this period of temptation and resistance. Where is God in this practice? Where is the real temptation?
You see, the point of Lent is not small and temporary, nor is it about us or our ability to make small sacrifices. The point of Lent is what Christ proclaims at the beginning of his ministry: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent; and believe in the good news. Giving something up for 40 days hardly seems to embody the transformation that repentance calls for. When we focus so much on one little thing, like resisting temptation in just one area of life, we miss the bigger picture that Jesus is proclaiming. Lent is very much about the big picture.
During Lent we focus on the realities of life, the dirty and ugly stuff. Stuff like the fact that we give in to temptation all too often. Stuff like the fact that we focus on ourselves most of the time. Stuff like the fact that we continue to sin no matter how hard we try not to. Stuff like suffering. Stuff like death. Stuff like serving our own interests and the likelihood that if Jesus walked the earth today, we would crucify him again. No matter how hard we work, no matter our accomplishments, life is still hard, and we can’t make it better.
Now, you are probably thinking, that sounds downright depressing, why would we want to focus on all of that for 40 days??? The answer is simple: perspective.
If the kingdom of God is here, and we are to change our lives and believe in the good news, a good question is why? Or what is this good news? Well, the good news is that in God’s kingdom, all of those ugly realities of life are taken away. We are wiped clean and given a new life, transformed in Christ, made possible by his transformation from crucifixion to resurrection.
The grace of God doesn’t make any sense until we understand that we need it. Forgiveness means nothing unless we acknowledge that we have sin and a deep desire for it to be taken away. New life is only good news when we recognize that the one we have isn’t exactly what we are looking for. In our broken world, there is a great need for transformation, and we aren’t going to be able to make that happen on our own.
The real thing that we give up in the season of Lent is ourselves, our lives, our control. We give it all over to God, so that God can transform and redeem us. We admit our mistakes, our shortcomings, our inability to fix ourselves and our world. And the God who gives us life itself will turn our suffering and heartache into something new and beautiful. It will not be something you do at all, but something that is done to you.
Lent is our great reminder of the journey through life, a journey that leads to death. Lent is here to remind us of our need for transformation; transformation that can come only from God; transformation that comes in the great promise of Easter. The celebration will be that much more joyful when we are reminded how much we need a savior to give us new life.
No comments:
Post a Comment