Choosing Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday which means it is the beginning of Lent. In some ways my whole world revolves around the liturgical seasons, they help me make sense out of a confusing world. I am not so easily drawn into the chaos of things, be it society or nature, because I have this “safety net” called faith that I can draw upon. They also remind me of my littleness, my insignificance and my mortality. (So, that’s fun! :D) But through these seasons I am better able to understand that God sees me. That he knows every hair on my head, that I am so much like the sparrow. More importantly, I am better able to understand his will for my life.

Lent is all about Love. It’s about discipline, obedience, sacrifice and penitence all in the name of Love. It’s about stopping and standing in front of your spiritual mirror completely naked and seeing how you have let yourself go. For just as too much sugar hangs out on your belly, so too much bitterness can weigh down your spirit. Just as your hips can convey a lack of exercise, so can your character convey spiritual sloth. Science shows that a healthy heart and an unhealthy heart have lived very different lives.

Lent also allows us to talk about sin. You know, that thing that people don’t like to think they ever do. Well, we do it, we have to acknowledge and we have to talk about it. Why? Because the evidence of our sinfulness is all around us. If you are an American it is everywhere. Our sinfulness is reflected in the environment, in the kids who have been separated from their parents at the border, in the homelessness in our streets, in the rejection of immigrants and refugees. In the racism and anti-semitism that has been allowed to flourish. It is everywhere and I am sure you can share many that I have missed.

WE have to talk about it in order to reject it. We have to acknowledge our role in it in order to change it.

That is what Jesus is telling us to do today. We hear a lot of public lip service about Christianity today but not a lot of actual Christian behavior. We need to reject what Jesus told us to reject, in today’s reading it was those who stand on street corners and who want us to stare at their piety but who show no evidence of it at work in their lives. Why? Because God is no fool and God knows our heart. Oftentimes, God knows our heart better than we know our own hearts.

For these reasons, I choose Lent. I choose to trust God to walk me through what can be a challenging season of transformation. I trust God in his eternal mercy to show me what needs to be transformed and to help me transform it. I trust God in his mercy to never waver in his compassion or his love for me. In confidence, this season, I choose Lent.

I hope you will join me.