Why I Love Lent

What are you giving up for Lent? This is a question that I’ve been asked a lot recently. But honestly, I don’t really like the framing. I think it misses the point. Lent marks the forty days leading up to Easter. It is a time of asking for forgiveness, of confession, and of self-denial. Thus, the question: what are you giving up? The traditional answer is not eating red meat. That’s why fast food restaurants always roll out their fish sandwiches this time of the year. More contemporary answers might be giving up desserts, or caffeine, or social media. Personally, I usually fast (don’t eat food) until sundown. Food is something that I give up for Lent, but not eating is not the point. Lent isn’t about what we give up. Lent is about what we gain.

I grew up in a church with no tradition of following the church calendar. We celebrate Christmas and Easter of course, but we didn’t observe Lent, or Advent. I only knew Christmas had twelve days because of the carol. I didn’t even know what Epiphany was (it’s the celebration of the coming of the Magi at the end of the twelve days of Christmas). When I moved for grad school, I started attending an Episcopal Church in northern New York state, where the church calendar is a part of the worship of the church. I started doing the prayers and readings from the Daily Office, and the church calendar became part of my day to day life as well as my services on Sunday.  And I’ve really come to love following the contours of the church year.

The church year gives me a structure to life that constantly turns me towards Jesus Christ. The American calendar has a pattern and expectations that we so often conform to. Early December is for stress and shopping. New Years is for partying. Valentine's day is for extravagant gift giving. Easter is for candy. Basically, all times are time for consumerism. The church year runs parallel and counter to the rhythms of the American year, even when they overlap on days like Christmas and Easter. Advent, early December, is a time of almost somber expectation. Christmas gives us joy which lasts far beyond the 25th. Easter is the day of the victory of Christ, and a remembrance that we share in his resurrection and are called children of God. Lent is for us to remember our humanity. I love this counter-cultural structure of the church year. It suffuses the mundane with the holy, and reminds us that we are in the world but not of it.

February 26th was probably just a normal Wednesday for most people, but this year on the church calendar, it’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. The day after the much better known and celebrated Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday in church language), Ash Wednesday is one of the two most somber days of the year. After the parades are over, after the paczkis, king cakes, and fasnachts have all been eaten, after the high of life, comes Ash Wednesday. And Ash Wednesday means death. Ash Wednesday means confronting that none of us are really good. We have all done bad things; always in little ways and often in big ways. And we will all die. “For dust you are, and to dust you will return.” It is wonderful and beautiful that we are all stardust, but at the same time we know we will inevitably be so again. And there is the gaping unknown of life and death between dust and dust. 

But ultimately, Lent leads us into a new, eternal life. It brings us to Easter. Lent is challenging. It is an assault on our sense of self. It asks us to give up our normal ways of life. But while we give this up, we gain so much more. If we look at ourselves frankly and clearly on Ash Wednesday, we realize we don’t have a lot going for us. Even if we’ve done some good, or a lot of good, we’ve still done a lot of bad. We have life, but we are not the source of life. The life we have will always turn over to death. Denying ourselves means turning towards life, and God the source of life. 

I’m often reminded of the parable Jesus tells about a pearl when I’m asked what I’m giving up for Lent. In the parable, Jesus says, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” The merchant doesn’t complain about all the things he had to give up to get this one pearl. He clearly doesn’t care what he had to give up, because the pearl that he found is of much greater worth than everything else he had. This is why I love Lent. It doesn’t matter what we give up. Talking about what we give up or Lent misses the entire point. Because it’s not about going without food or caffeine or beef. It’s about everything that we gain in Christ. 

Following Christ, whatever the cost, is not a loss, but an infinite gain. God gives us eternal life now, he opens up the kingdom of heaven to us, he sends his Spirit to us and adopts us as his children. God gives us so much more than what we have. As Paul says in Romans, “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” Giving up what we have is inconsequential, not even that, it is in itself a gain. Because, what we have is mortal bodies. Ash Wednesday reminds us that we’re dust, and will be again. We have death. God gives us life. Lent is the time we set aside each year to remind ourselves of that.