Rediscovering Lent by Beth Anderson

Published: February 26th, 2009

To my younger self, Lent was an out-dated tradition with no real relevance. Occasional years I’d join in the fun, denying myself something I really liked to eat mainly to see if I had the self-control to complete the course. One year it was crisps, another it was chocolate: that year I ate so much on Easter Sunday to cause my caffeine starved body a headache! I wondered if it could seriously just be about that – denial for its own sake, followed by abundance?

Last year a friend of mine lent me an article to read on the sacrament of lent. Reluctant to read it, I nevertheless decided to pick it up and peruse it at length. By the end, my perspective had changed…

It is a serious thing to claim that the God of the universe, all-powerful creator being, would ever have contact with the created, let alone continual and loving contact, let alone step into the course of history himself and subvert the flow from within. And to believe that the one to whom all authority belongs would relinquish his rights and willingly suffer to set the course of the world back on track? It takes faith.

But say you have the faith, the faith that says God has decided we’re worth saving, to the extent of his own personal sacrifice? How should we approach the time of remembrance of what Jesus did, his victory over sin and hell on the cross enabling people to live in the freedom of the fullness of life? Can we treat it lightly, looking forward to some time off work and a chocolate egg, giving up things for no real reason in the run up?

If we truly consider the sacrifice made by the God of the universe, the humiliation and pain he willingly suffered… how can we not respond in kind? God when I look at what you gave up for me, how can I unthinkingly live in my comfort, in my abundance and say I respect and honour you? Is Lent a placing of ourselves in the story in an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of it; bringing greater glory to its author and leading man?

So many people in this world go without – can we stand with them in this rediscovering of Lent; saving up the money from our relinquished treats to give away? Should we just be giving up treats, as difficult as they may be? What about ‘essentials’ – maybe not even staples but the coffees or beers we’ve become so used to and built into our lives? Changing the rhythm of our days by removing from it, for a time, that which we’ve built it around?

In Jesus’ denial of himself, he afforded us abundance – of life, of love. Can we in our small ways of denial, bring an abundance? Take away our spending ability and be freed from the consumptive power of shops all around. Give up tea / coffee and free our bodies from their addiction to caffeine. In our moments of desire for the relinquished, remembering the world’s and our souls’ desperate need for God. Realising the magnitude of what he gave up by comparison with the little we offer up and so affording him more honour and praise. Easter takes on greater meaning when you’ve walked the way of the Cross. Maybe I did get it kinda right as my younger self – perhaps denial now, for the sake of the other, can lead to an abundance later?

Since leaving her home town of Swansea, Beth Anderson's travels have taken her across every (inhabited) continent and allowed her to work with a diverse range of people from children with AIDS in Bombay to the homeless in Melbourne. A member of the Guildford Boiler Room after completing Transit there, she looks forward to teaching English abroad.

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