Today I would like to talk about something we don’t often talk much about in Evangelical churches: Lent. And to begin talking about it, I am going to read to you a quick thought on lent from someone who does not understand what lent is about. It reads as follows: “[Lent] is silly. Why give up something? Jesus wouldn't give anything up. He would want you to enjoy everything you do and have each and every day. Or did I misread the Bible?”
Unfortunately, this is a regular misconception about both lent and about Jesus. Today, in America, we expect our faith to be easy. We don’t feel that we need to work at what we believe. We think that if something is hard for us, Jesus won’t really ask it of us. After all, Jesus himself told us that his yoke was easy and his burden was light.
But then we look at Jesus himself. He began his ministry by spending forty days in the desert fasting. And his message for the people of God was to repent, to turn from their evil ways, for the kingdom of God is near. Jesus lived a life where his whims weren’t answered and he went to the cross, sacrificing himself for his people.
Jesus lived a life of sacrifice. Though he lived a life full of joy, he gave up much for us, his people. So the idea that Jesus would not want us to give anything up for him is plain and simply wrong. Jesus came back from his forty days in the desert with a message that told us that he wanted us to give up something in particular, and not just for forty days… he wanted us to repent, he wanted us to give up our sin.
I. Wilderness Time
Today’s scripture tells us that immediately after Jesus was baptized, the Spirit sent him out into the desert. Not having been to Israel, many of us automatically think that the desert must have been like the Sahara, large dunes of sand that stretched as far as the eye can see. In truth, the word desert is misleading, for it wasn’t the desert that Jesus went off into. Rather it was the wilderness.
When we look at people in the Bible who are used by God, they all spend time in the wilderness. They all spend time away from civilization, out in the wilderness, and through this time in the wilderness they are tested and their faith grows. Moses spent forty years in the wilderness as a shepherd before God called him in the burning bush and brought him back to Egypt to lead God’s people to freedom. Elijah spent time in the wilderness hiding from his enemies after he called down fire from heaven. Angels attended him and met his needs as he hid in the wilderness. David was on the run from King Saul and fled to the wilderness, hiding in caves. The people of Israel spent forty years in the wilderness before they could enter the Promised Land. Even Paul, after his conversion on the road to Damascus, spent time in the wilderness studying and learning about this Jesus who he now served.
And, here we have Jesus, going to the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan, where he is tried as he is surrounded by wild animals, and where angels come to care for him. The angels come to care for Jesus in the wilderness, because it is desolate enough that a person cannot care for themselves out in the wilderness. And for Jesus, this wilderness is not something that he is forced into, it is something that he chooses, because the Spirit is leading him there. Yet it is only after his forty days in the wilderness that Jesus comes and begins to proclaim his message. It is after his forty days in the wilderness that Jesus truly begins his ministry.
So Jesus is sent to the wilderness and through this time of fasting and temptation he is prepared for his three-year ministry and his journey toward the cross. Jesus spends forty days preparing himself for what is to come. He spends forty days putting himself in a difficult position so that he will better be prepared for what he has yet to face.
It is no coincidence that the season of Lent is the forty days before Easter. Actually, if you count it up, you’ll notice that it is a few more than forty days. That is because we don’t count the Sundays of lent as a part of the season. On each and every Sunday we remember Christ’s resurrection, and therefore they are breaks from the season of lent. Now Easter is the most exciting and important thing we celebrate as Christians. It is at Easter that we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. It is at Easter that we remember that Jesus conquered death and sin. But the forty days before Easter have been remembered by the church as a time to discipline ourselves and focus on our need for what Christ has done for us. The forty days before Easter are our time to spend in the wilderness. Different churches and different Christians have chosen to spend this time in the wilderness in different ways. For some it means eating no meat on Fridays during lent. For others it means giving something up. For some it means having an extra worship service during the week. For others, it is all about wearing ashes on your forehead for a day. And sometimes we seem to trivialize the forty days of wilderness by making lent all about giving up chocolate. In truth it’s about much more than that.
II. Lent
I need to tell you that the hardest part of Lent for me has always been that it happens in spring. Having grown up in Washington, where we could go for months without ever seeing the sun through the winter, the first days of sunshine in the springtime were important. The melancholy that the lack of sun had laid in our hearts evaporated as we began to see blue sky again. It can be much the same here in Iowa, when, after a particularly cold winter, it begins to heat up again. Yet it never seemed to fail that when the sun began to show itself again, and we all found our spirits rising in an exciting way due to the change in the weather, Ash Wednesday would come around and we would be told that we were supposed to give something up and spend our worship time focused on how horrible we all are. I always fought against that. My thought was that I had just gotten over giving something up for at least forty days… the sun. And now it’s back and I’m going to enjoy it to its fullest. The only wilderness I wanted to spend time in as the first signs of spring showed themselves was the wilderness of God’s creation.
Yet there is something to be said for taking time to be in wilderness. There is something to be said for choosing not to put your energy into meeting each and every whim that comes across your thoughts.
Again, I go back to the example of Jesus. We are told about the temptations put before him by Satan. He was tempted to change a stone into bread, so that his hunger could be satisfied. He was tempted to throw himself off the temple so that angels could come to his rescue. He was tempted to bow before Satan so that he could become ruler of the world without having to face the cross. Each of the temptations attacked his selfishness. Each of the temptations was about him taking care of his problems himself in his own way. He was tempted to make his own food so he didn’t need to rely on anyone else to provide for him. He was tempted to test God and make a big display of his power as angels saved him from death in front of crowds of the faithful, insuring his place as Messiah in the hearts and minds of those who witnessed this miracle. He was tempted to avoid the pain of the cross altogether as he bowed to Satan, allowing the ends to justify the means.
But in the face of these temptations Jesus chose to remain faithful. In the face of these temptations Jesus chose to do what was right. And then he returned with a message calling for all people to repent and believe. He could call for us to repent because he faced the same temptations we have faced. Yet he was able to remain faithful to God. And now he offers the opportunity for us to live in that same relationship with God that he has, to call out to God as our Abba, our dad, and all we must do is repent and believe the good news.
III. Celebrating Lent
So, how are you going to spend this season of lent? Is lent just a silly concept put together by some silly people in the Catholic Church that misses the point of being joyful about our faith? Sometimes it comes across that way. Sometimes it seems that lent is all about taking all the fun out of being a Christian. But lent can be something much greater, something much more. I would go as far as to say that if lent is only something that takes the joy and fun out of being a Christian, you are probably celebrating it the wrong way.
Lent can be an opportunity for us to spend time in the wilderness as Jesus did, as so many men and women of God throughout scripture did. It can be a time where we get our priorities straight. It can be a time where we learn to rely on God and not ourselves, a time where we turn over our sins and our pride, our selfishness to God and allow him to work a special way in our lives.
Lent is not something to be dreaded, something to be mocked. It is not at all about being depressed or overly hard on ourselves. It is something that we can celebrate. As we enter the wilderness we will grow to know God better, we will find new ways to draw closer to him, we will find his call on our lives to grow clearer and more understandable. So, this spring, let us celebrate the season of lent together.
What are you giving up for lent? Perhaps you can follow Jesus call in Mark 1:15. Perhaps you can give up your sin. Amen.
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