Lent

[Our lessons were Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Peter 3:18-22; and Mark 1:9-15.]

We start our Lenten journey with water. First, we hear God’s promise to Noah after the Flood: Never again would God use water to destroy all life on earth. The rainbow, which we now know is merely, but beautifully, the result of light shining through water in the sky after a storm, would be a sign of God’s promise. Water would be a symbol of rebirth and renewal, not death.

Then we hear again, for the second time in a few short weeks, Mark’s brief description of the baptism of Jesus. (Some writers think Mark’s tighter, sparser language was because his Gospel may have been the first written. I wonder whether he was auditioning for a writer on “Headline News.”) Back on the First Sunday after Epiphany, our reading ended with God’s proclamation that Jesus was God’s beloved son, with whom God was well pleased. Today, we begin there.

After Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit “immediately drove him into the wilderness.” We often speak of the Holy Spirit in roles of comforter and strengthener, but here is another one: a driving force that pushes us forward in a direction we hadn’t planned and might not have wanted to go. The Holy Spirit is unpredictable; in Acts we read that the Apostles might be suddenly sent in unplanned directions and that, when Peter was preaching to the Gentiles in Caesarea, before he had even finished, the Spirit apparently decided, “That’s good enough; I’ll take these!” and “fell upon all who heard the word.”

Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days, bringing back to mind the forty-year wandering of the people of God after fleeing from Egypt. Lent is intended to symbolize that time in the wilderness for us to help us prepare for Good Friday and Easter. Even as Jesus had the opportunity in the wilderness to reflect on his journey, we are called, as we heard on Ash Wednesday, to “self-examination and repentance; … prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and … reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

We often speak of what we are going to give up for Lent. Some intend to give up things that are bad for them, sweets, alcohol, smoking, for example. Actually, we shouldn’t wait until Lent to give them up, if they’re bad for us. Perhaps we should think instead of giving up something that is good for us for a time, so we can appreciate it more. It can be also be a good time to take on an additional discipline, such as a Lenten study program or saying the Daily Office. Lent is when we do things differently, so they can have more meaning when we resume them.

In his message for Lent this year, the Archbishop of Canterbury says

It’s important to remember that the word ‘Lent’ itself comes from the old English word for ‘spring’. It’s not about feeling gloomy for forty days; it’s not about making yourself miserable for forty days; it’s not even about giving things up for forty days. Lent is springtime. It’s preparing for that great climax of springtime which is Easter–new life bursting through death. And as we prepare ourselves for Easter during these days, by prayer and by self-denial, what motivates us and what fills the horizon is not self-denial as an end in itself but trying to sweep and clean the room of our own minds and hearts so that the new life really may have room to come in and take over and transform us at Easter.

As we prepare for Easter, we mustn’t focus so thoroughly on our personal growth that we overlook the world outside our doors. As part of our acts of repentance and self-discipline, why don’t we contact our elected officials and encourage them to ensure that, especially in these times of economic hardship, our state and national budgets reflect the importance of God’s justice.

Lent isn’t supposed to be a comfortable season. We take on things and give up things. Our churches lack some of the trappings of the rest of the year and our liturgy gives up “Alleluias.” Lent reminds us that we are pilgrims on a road, not settlers. If we find this Lent difficult, inconvenient, uncomfortable, maybe it will be a sign that we are getting the right idea.