Lent This Year

We are soon to arrive in the season of Lent. It will find us next week, Wednesday.

The celebration of Lent is old. There are references to it as far back as the second century. During those early days, Lent was mostly for those who were new to the faith. Just as our Lord went out into the desert in the story of the Temptation to fast, pray, spend time with the Holy Spirit and then confront the devil, Lent for new believers was to do likewise. Lent being the time to commemorate the Temptation, just as Christmas is the time to remember the birth of Christ, and Easter the resurrection.

Over time this focus of Lent changed. There was a time in the Middle Ages when Lent was particularly focused on the penitent. Those who had been excommunicated by the Church for whatever reason, but who desperately wanted to find their way back in. For these believers, what better way to show a change of heart than willingly choosing to go through the same ordeal as our Lord did in the wilderness in order to reorient themselves toward Him?

In the time since the Middle Ages, Lent has continued to change. Now, at least for many believers who choose to practice the season, Lent has become a period in which we give up things important to us. Just as Christ gave up food for forty days, so too do we give up Coffee, Facebook or popular music. In this way, we figure, we in some small way join our Lord in the hardships he faced in the Temptation.

Now, while I do not want to take away from your experiences if you find this version of the Lenten season particularly meaningful, I will say this is a terrible understanding of Lent. I say this because this version of Lent seems to be based on a poor understanding of the Temptation itself.

The purpose of the story of the Temptation is not that Jesus went through hardships. I think we often believe this because we have a bad understanding of what fasting is in the first place. When we see that Jesus fasted for forty days, we automatically think about just how painful this must have been, being without food for that long. But by focusing on the pain, we miss what the purpose of fasting biblically actually is. Fasting in the Bible is something always done with a single purpose; to orient yourself toward God. Fasting is never just about giving something up for the sake of self-denial, but is instead always about giving something up and in place of the time and focus that you would normally spend on that thing, instead expending that effort looking toward God instead. Food is the most common thing given up because in making that sacrifice, you are saying that you place your very life in God’s hands.

This is the actual purpose of the story of the Temptation. Not that Jesus went without food for forty days and how hard that must have been, but instead, look at how Jesus oriented his life toward God. Following Jesus’ baptism before going out to begin his ministry, our Lord first spent a long period of time, forty days, together with the Holy Spirit, praying and fasting. Orienting himself toward our Heavenly father. That the Son of God himself did this, how important must it be for us believers to do likewise! We know that doing this work at orienting our lives toward God is an important part of being a Christian because we see the results in scripture. What does Christ do immediately after spending this time focusing on God? He stands up to the devil though he is tempted with the world itself!

This is what the story of the Temptation is about. The importance of spending time orienting ourselves toward God. And that this is what the story of the Temptation is about means that this needs to be what the celebration of Lent is about also. Not about self-denial, not about taking things out of our life, but instead about doing whatever it takes, adding whatever practices we need, in order to make sure we are heading towards the Lord in the first place.

In this way, I think the Church of the past had a much better understanding of Lent than we do. When it was a season for new believers, Lent was a time spent orienting lives toward the Lord so that they could, like Christ, stand strong in their faith when trials came. When Lent was a time for the penitent to show themselves repentant of the actions that caused them to be cast out of the Church in the first place, Lent was a time of reorienting lives back toward God.

This Lenten season, I say we choose to reclaim this understanding of orienting and reorienting that those who came before us in the Church held. As we head into Lent next Wednesday, instead of thinking simply, “what should I deny myself in order that I may join Christ in his suffering”, I encourage you to ask yourself instead “what should I be doing during this season in order to reorient myself toward God?” If what you come up with is that there is something you must give up in order to focus on our Lord better, then great, by all means do that. But let pointing yourself toward our Lord this season be the goal.