Thinking About Lent

We are nearly a third of the way through the 40 days of Lent, marching toward “the first day of the week” of a new creation era that Jesus’ resurrection brings. Growing up I didn’t know much about Lent beyond the fact that the only Roman Catholic girl in my high school class gave up chocolate every year during Lent. I don’t recall any great spiritual overtones to that, simply that she was “giving up chocolate.”

Of course the idea of 40 days (not counting the Lord’s Day) being a time of spiritual reflection, personal discipline, and prayer is not biblical. At least not biblical in the sense of show me “book, chapter, and verse.” But then neither are lots of other things we routinely do, including building church buildings, having paid ministry staff, communion served as individual pieces of unleavened bread on trays and little plastic cups filled with Welch’s grape juice neatly arranged in three circles in trays, and a host of other expedient activities we have grown accustomed to seeing as important.

I’m reading Mark this year during Lent and following the lectionary readings on Sunday. The first words out of Jesus’ mouth in Mark include “repent and believe the good news.” In barely a column of space in the standard English Bible, Mark tells us about John the Baptist and his baptism for repentance message; has Jesus baptized by John; talks about the 40 days of temptation in the wilderness; and then “repent and believe the good news.”

Matthew and Luke’s versions of these events take up considerable more space while Mark has already introduced his “immediately” word. When I read what Matthew and Luke have to say about the temptation story, it seems to me that the primary issue in play is that Satan wants Jesus to be the kind of “razzle-dazzle, miracle a day keeps the Romans away” Messiah religious people of the day wanted. Jesus turns Satan down at every turn. (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13)

I wonder what would happen if, during the remaining days of Lent, each of us spent some of our spiritual reflection time thinking about the  differences between what religious people sometimes want us to be and what God is calling us to be. Would that make any difference in how we go about “being Jesus” to the world around us? After all, didn’t He say “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you?” (John 20)

If those 40 days were helpful in preparing Jesus to be the person His Father sent him to be, then I am confident that I could use some preparation myself. Lent may not be “biblical” in the sense that there are specific instructions in Scripture that it be observed, but the idea – perhaps ideal – of Lent seems to be a part of following Jesus’ example.

I know that every day of my life should be focused on being what God has called me to be. But that was true for Jesus also. Not to resort to bumper sticker theology, but “if it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good   enough for me.”