A Reflection on Lent

February brings a busy time this year with the season of Lent. However, not everyone knows what Lent is and what its purpose is to accomplish.

Lent is a season of soul-searching and repentance. It is a season for reflection and taking stock. Lent originated in the very earliest days of the Church as a preparatory time for Easter, when the faithful rededicated themselves and when converts were instructed in the faith and prepared for baptism. By observing the forty days of Lent, the individual Christian imitates Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days.

What are the “forty” days? Because Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, we skip over Sundays when we calculate the length of Lent. Therefore, in the Western Church, Lent always begins on Ash Wednesday, the seventh Wednesday before Easter. In many countries, the last day before Lent (called Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Carnival, or Fasching) has become a last fling before the solemnity of Lent. For centuries, it was customary to fast by abstaining from meat during Lent, which is why some people call the festival “Carnival,” which is Latin for farewell to meat.

Enough explaining the details. What’s the purpose of Lent? What should the Christian feel and how should the Christian respond? We avoid Lent and Holy Week because it isn’t a happy and uplifting time – but to be honest, neither is most of life. Sometimes we come to church all scrubbed up, dressed nicely, with smiles on our faces, and when people ask how we are, we reply that everything is fine and we even boast how wonderful things are – but it’s not truthful at times. Life is not always uplifting, or wonderful, or pleasant, or joyous – but we have been taught the lie that for spiritual people like us, it must be so. So we become play actors. In a sense, we’re hypocrites.

But in this we miss the whole point of the incarnation! God became flesh in Jesus Christ. Jesus faced temptation, he suffered hunger and thirst, and he suffered the agony of crucifixion. Jesus our God did not face these things so that we would be exempt from them. He faced these things so that we would have dignity in them.

The people of this world believe in the power of positive thinking and in happiness, and in believing these things, they are very shrewd. For people of this world have only the present moment, and if they are unhappy in it, they have lost something. But we who are Christians can endure unhappiness and sadness and loneliness and backstabbing and betrayal and friendlessness and poverty and hunger and thirst; we can face mourning and grief and even death, because Jesus faced all those things. As Christians, we know that Jesus’ suffering was his way to glory, and his Crucifixion was the door to his Resurrection. We know that he ascended on high and sits, alive and well, at the right hand of his Father, where he rules over all things. We can face our own crucifixions in life, because we know that we will share in his Resurrection on the Last Day!

On Palm Sunday, there were crowds who cheered Jesus as the King, but where were all those fair-weather friends when Jesus prayed in agony on Gethsemane, and where were they when he hung upon the cross?

Therefore, let us show that we as Christians are not just Jesus’ groupies, we are his friends. Let us be bold to join him, fasting in the wilderness for forty days during Lent. Let us be bold to pray with him in the garden on Maundy Thursday. Let us fearlessly stand at the foot of his cross on Good Friday, so that we may witness his Resurrection and his Ascension, and join in his triumphant reign. And on that Last Day, when Jesus brushes away the groupies, let us be among his true friends, whom he welcomes into his glory.