THE SEASON OF LENT

THIS IS THE SEASON

in the Christian church called Lent. It began this year on February 17. Lent was never really a part of the free Pentecostal church in which I grew up, but over the years having worked among followers of Jesus of many different liturgical and non liturgical stripes, I have grown to appreciate the meaning and concept of Lent. It is a period of 40 days of penance each year beginning on Ash Wednesday that includes fasting (excepting Sundays) and imitates Jesus’ 40 days of fasting in the wilderness before beginning his public ministry.

Ash Wednesday 2021 has come and gone, but I have to share this amusing story told by Tish Harrison Warren in her book, Prayer in the Night.[1]

“ONE ASH WEDNESDAY

a decade ago, when I (Tish) was new to Anglicanism, I knelt at a rail as Fr. Thomas, my priest, smeared a black cross on each forehead. ‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,’ he intoned, and marked the preteen girl kneeling next to me. Then, I heard her turn to her mom and whisper, ‘Does my ash look all right?’

“Still kneeling, I started to laugh. Because of course it didn’t look all right. She had a large black smudge in the middle of her forehead. There is no way for that to look all right. But I also laughed because I heard my own heart in her question. I know I’m limited. I know I’m dust and returning to dust. I bear vulnerability, weariness, and mortality. I bear sin, selfishness, and struggle. But I still want to, you know, look okay. I want to pretend I am still all right. I have it together. It’s a well-practiced fa?ade. I’m a ten-year-old girl with a big, black smudge on my face hoping to somehow pass as acceptably cool.

“The good news of Jesus is not that we get a merit badge for being put together and hope that God ignores our failures. We serve God not only with our strengths, but in our weaknesses.”[2]

WHETHER OR NOT

the Lenten season has been a normal part of your spiritual journey, it’s not too late to start. The important thing is not that you’ve already missed doing the exact number of days this year, nor that you may not have had ashes smeared on your forehead in the shape of a cross, symbolizing death and repentance. For me the important thing is that I give time each day to reflect, to repent and seek forgiveness, and to lean into Christ as my Advocate, while facing squarely the Dark Enemy of my Soul.

LENT CAN BE MORE

than a liturgical symbol. You can make it a living thing. A season of fresh devotion and direction. Jesus took 40 days to face down his consummate Enemy before beginning his most important work …. the priceless redemption of our souls. So let’s stop trying to fake it, to look good, to be cool. Let’s listen well as God imagines with us what could be but is not yet.

May Jesus keep us close.

[1]Tish Harrison Warren is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. She is the author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, which was Christianity Today's 2018 Book of the Year. Her articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Religion News Service, Christianity Today, Comment Magazine, The Point, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband and three children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[2] Adapted from Prayer in the Night by Tish Harrison Warren. Copyright ? 2021 by Tish Harrison Warren. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. ivpress.com