40 Days: Lent

40 Days: A Series on Lent

40 Days

God sent rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights when Noah and his family got into the ark.  Moses sat atop Mount Sinai receiving instructions from God for forty days.  Elijah walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of Horeb when he fled Jezebel.

God moves deeply when given a forty-day time period.  He uses it as a time of testing, a time of growth & instruction, or a time of transformation.  I don’t remember ever reading that Noah, Moses or Elijah ever sought out these seasons of holiness.  But God anointed them all the same. 

Jesus clearly initiated his forty days in the wilderness, and because of his divinity he knew full well it wouldn’t be simply wearying.  He was going in preparation for the days his Father told him were coming.

In many denominational churches around the world, we are now beginning a season of forty days called Lent.  It is a season beginning with Ash Wednesday and culminating in the celebration of resurrection on Easter Sunday, incorporating intentional rhythms of prayer, fasting & abstinence, and repentance.   This is a manmade construct, not one you’ll find anywhere in the Bible, and was created as a season in which we could honor and commemorate Jesus’ suffering, sacrifice and resurrection.  In the early church, it was primarily for the new believer joining the church.  Over time, as many things do, it evolved.

Some Christians today may not even know about lent or may see it as ‘old religion’.  But if we take away the religious trappings, we can still glean goodness from walking through this season with intention and in the end gain transformation.

Ash Wednesday, for example, can seem odd to the outsider.  A believer will attend a special church service and then walk around with an ash cross on their forehead for the remainder of the day.  There is Biblical evidence to this action.  In the Old Testament we can clearly see that ashes denote mourning, mortality and penance.  Mordecai puts on sackcloth and ashes, as does Job in his season of testing.  Receiving the ashes is a physical reminder of the truth found in Ecclesiastes 3:20.  ‘All go to the same place.  All come from dust and all return to the dust.’  The lent season begins here, where we acknowledge the agony, ache and grief of our mortality and our sin.  And that holds true no matter what church you attend.

It all begins with ashes.  And before you can receive ashes, there must be fire.

What are you returning to dust this year?  What is hindering your relationship with God and needs to be laid down or set aside?  What sin do you need to turn away from?

There is something beautiful and haunting in the fact that the Eastern Orthodox church calls it the season of bright sadness.  The idea being that despite the brokenness and sorrow that permeates this world, the heaviness that threatens our communities, we choose to seek Him. 

Is there a sorrow that you feel weight by?  Are you struggling with a hidden brokenness that is salting your life in a bitter way?

Maybe lent is your chance to lay it down, to press past it in order to reach out and draw near to God.  Let the aching, the hole in your chest, the sorrow of loss, the shadow of depression or the bitter tang of fear be burned up and fall to ash.

In John 16 Jesus tells us, ‘I assure you that you will cry and lament, and the world will be happy.  You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.  When a woman gives birth, she has pain because her time has come.  But when the child is born, she no longer remembers her distress because of her joy that a child has been born into the world.  In the same way, you have sorrow now; but I will see you again, and you will be overjoyed.  No one takes away your joy.’

In the midst of our broken world – now burned by COVID, political upheaval, cultural antagonism, and generations filled with despair and confusion – our sorrow is not unknown to Him.

And it will have an end.  Did you catch that part?  He tells us that we have sorrow now, but we will be overjoyed.

And no one takes away your joy.

So, what does lent mean for us today?

Perhaps it simply offers us a chance to intentionally, willfully, set Him as first.  To recognize God’s sovereignty, His holy position in our lives and to repent of our idols that have stolen our hearts.  And if we can manage to do so for these forty days, we will have re-routed our behaviors and thought patterns.  We will receive transformed hearts.  We will awaken on Easter morning eager to rejoice – with awe, humility and purpose.

Observing forty days can be done in many ways, but traditionally includes forms of prayer, fasting & abstinence, and repentance.  Unless you have fasted before and have consulted your doctor, I don’t recommend jumping into a forty-day fast from food.  There are a lot of things to be aware of if you choose that route.  But there are many more ‘modern’ options that appeal to people:

               -fast from one meal each day, or from sun up to sun down

               -abstain from social media

               -read a special Lenten daily devotional

               -read through one of the Gospels, start to finish

               -attend a stations of the cross service

-forty days of prayer dedicated to something in particular (your neighborhood, your nation, etc)

The goal is to discover that thing that has more control over you than God, that stands in as an idol or distraction, and walk away from it.  It isn’t meant to be easy or feel good.  The essence of fasting and abstinence is sacrifice.  And when God has put to death our earthly nature, He will replace it with a pure, clean heart.  You might find yourself walking through forty days of feeling raw and vulnerable. 

It's worth it.

Over the next several weeks you’ll be able to listen as I chat with friends about some of these topics.  How God invites us to lay down idols in our lives, how we walk through wilderness times with Him, and the power to be found in repentance.  I hope you’ll listen in and hear their God-stories, being encouraged as you walk through your own forty days.

And I hope that this year, if you’re able to make the sacrifice, it will make your rejoicing even brighter when Easter morning arrives.