Thoughts on Lent

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?"
- Kahil Gibran, The Prophet


Growing up in the So-Bap church I missed out on some really great stuff, including trick-or-treating, Harry Potter, beer, and liturgy. I'll save hops and Halloween for another day. Until then, let's talk about Lent.

It's only been in the past few years that I've thought about Lent, and it's been especially meaningful this time around. I attended an Ash Wednesday service a couple of weeks ago that profoundly affected me. It's a funny thing, isn't it? Why would we possibly want to celebrate death, remembering, "From dust we came, and to dust we will return"? It's morbid and weird, something to be ignored so that we can get on with our lives. If we remember our finiteness as humanity, won't we also remember our limitations in saving the world? What will we possibly do if we can't turn the world upside down for Jesus?!

Well, I'm beginning to think that maybe I'm not supposed to be the world's savior. It turns out someone already did that, and he just so happens to be the reason we celebrate Lent in the first place. I wonder what might happen if we stopped trying to be the saviors and instead, we took time to find what Jesus is already saving, and then joined in that. I think we feel more comfortable being the saviors though. If I'm the savior, I call the shots, and I get the credit. But when we acknowledge our extreme limits and submit to Jesus, it's not about us anymore. And even more difficult, we don't get to hide from the world's pain and suffering.

Paul tells us that in order to share in Christ's glory we must also share in his suffering (Rom 8:17). Jesus tells us to take up our cross (Luke 9:23). Well, that's anything but appealing. Why would anyone choose suffering for himself? What sort of masochistic faith are we a part of?

I have a hard time with this, but the ironic thing I've found is that the more deeply I enter into the world's suffering, the more deeply I experience life. I've recently had the privilege of sharing the burdens of several other people whose problems are more than I can imagine. Often, I want to run. I think of countless reasons to turn around and plug my ears. I come up with endless excuses of why I'm unable to engage. I don't want to feel the weight; it's just too heavy. It's hard and it's exhausting to sit in brokenness without answers, but now that I've known it, I can't seem to experience life apart from it.

When we can't fix the problems, we have no choice but to depend on Jesus. We don't get to merely think anymore; we have to feel. But in the depths of the messiness, we somehow find hope. We mysteriously come closer to being what God has created us to be.

I think this is what Lent is all about. It's a beautiful, sacred place of weakness. I'm reminded that I am a limited person, but I serve a limitless, eternal God. My life only can achieve so much, but I trust in the One who has achieved all things. And so we wait. We embrace our limits and hope for more.

I wonder... if we don't know, experience, and embrace brokenness, inadequacy, finiteness, and death, then how can we possibly know, experience, and embrace fullness, life, hope and resurrection?