Lent: Cutting to the Essentials

Not many people look forward to Lent, I think.

“Alleluia”s and joyful songs silenced. No flowers. All colour obliterated (according to ancient English custom) by “Lenten array” – natural linen, closely akin to the colour of ash, encouraging us to mourn for our sins.

We might think that there is nothing here to attract to ear or the eye; little to give joy to the heart.

And then there is the Lenten encouragement to fasting. Think of the words of Jesus which we read on Ash Wednesday: “When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

There is a promise of eternal reward here, of course. But still, to many modern ears, Lent can sound a bit dismal.

Who needs Lent, then? I do.

I need a time when I can cut through all the embellishments which, quite rightly, surround our celebration of the Christian faith – and cut to the essentials.

I need a time when I am invited to unclutter my life a little (even though the things that clutter it are often really good things), and re-evaluate my priorities.

I need a time to remove one or two of the things I want, and remember that I do not need them; a time to try to face up to my sins, and ask God to help me to overcome them.

I need to spend some more time simply remembering the awesome truth that God loves me so much that he was willing to die for me, to take from the punishment that was rightly mine, to pay the debt which my sins had accumulated and which, poor as I am, I could never have paid.

I need a time to be quiet with God and to listen as he tells me again that I am his beloved, adopted child. And that his decision to make me his beloved, adopted child trumps all other estimates of my worth, whether they are mine or anyone else’s.

I need Lent. I need a time with a little less colour and light, that I might see more clearly the true Light which has come into the world; a time with fewer gifts in my life, that I might find more time to attend to the greatest Gift of all.

I need Lent. How about you?

Joe