What is
Lent? I wondered this for the first time
when my catholic friend Brant Meleski told me he had to eat fish on
Fridays. When I asked why, he responded,
“Because it’s Lent.” I nodded, “Oh,
yeah.” Then we went back to playing our
video game and I wrote the whole thing off as one of those weird Catholic
things.
You might be surprised, as I was, to
later find out that the roots of Lent are more than just a ‘weird catholic
thing.’ Instead, it is a ‘weird church
thing.’ As early as the 2nd
Century Christians were participating in a fast on the last two days before
Easter. In the third century, the fast
had grown to include the whole week before Easter Sunday. Then by the beginning of the fourth century
some members of the church were participating in a 40 day fast. Why, you might be wondering would people do
such a thing? Well, as it turns out,
more than just “a catholic thing”, more than just “a church thing” it turns out
that Lent is really “a Jesus thing.”
Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." 4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: "'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" 7 Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." 10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'" 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Forty days in the desert
“Then
Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he
was hungry.” Forty. As you likely know the number 40 is
significant in the Bible. The rains fell
for forty days and forty nights on Noah and his family. Moses was on the mountain for forty days to
receive the Ten Commandments and then led the Israelites through the desert for
forty years. And now we read that Jesus
went into the desert for forty days. Today
marks the beginning of Lent which will last, guess how long, yep forty days
(not including Sundays). By
participating in Lent we are participating in Jesus’ journey into the desert. But, you might still be asking, why? Why did Jesus need to go into the
desert? To answer that, we’ll need to
deal with the devil.
Identity
After telling us that Jesus fasted
for forty days, the devil comes to Jesus with three temptations. In the first, he challenges Jesus to change a
stone into bread. Since this temptation
is preceded by the Matthew’s blindingly obvious statement, “he was hungry” we might
believe that Jesus was just being tempted with food, to break his fast. Though this may be part of the temptation,
the bigger temptation precedes the stone to bread test. Notice how the devil begins his temptation, “If you are the Son of God…” If. Lest we miss this opening, the devil will
begin his next temptation with the same phrase, “If you are the Son of God…throw yourself down from the temple.” What are we to make of this?
Do you remember what occurred just
before Jesus was led out into the desert?
We read this passage at the beginning of the year. After Jesus was baptized, the heavens opened,
the Spirit of God descended like a dove and the voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am
well pleased.” More than a Jew, more
than a son of Abraham, more even than the child of Mary and Joseph this is
Jesus’ identity – God’s beloved son. Everything
Jesus will do hinges upon this identity.
Remembering it will carry him
through the darkest times, forgetting would have caused him to fall even on the
brightest day.
Forty days in the desert was an
opportunity for Jesus to daily remember who and whose he was. Bread is good, but you don’t belong to
food. Friends are good, but you don’t
belong to friends. A home is good, but
you don’t belong to your home. Family is
good but you don’t belong to your family.
Shopping, alcohol, sugar and shows are good but you don’t belong to
these things.
“What is our only hope?” our
ancestors have asked for hundreds of years.
And the answer? “That I belong –
body and soul in life and death – not to myself but to my faithful savior Jesus
Christ…” More than all of “these things”, brothers and sisters, we belong to
God.
The desert was Jesus’ opportunity to
fast from all of these things so that he might feast on his relationship to the
Father. In a similar way, Lent is an
opportunity to fast from some of these things so that we might feast on our
relationship with God. Lent is an
opportunity to forget some of these things so that we might remember who and
whose we are. We belong to God. Remembering
this identity will carry us through the darkest times, forgetting will cause us
to fall on the brightest day. One
such fall relates directly to the name of this day – Ash Wednesday.
Facing Death (Ashes)
The practice of anointing with ashes has been around since the 8th
Century, but its roots run even deeper - all the way back to Eden. Though it was a garden instead of a desert,
like Jesus, Adam and Eve were tempted.
Unlike Jesus, they forgot their identity. They forgot who and whose they were. Even in that bright place, they fell.
From this fall our race derived its
name. Adam comes from Adamah (hm'd'a]
) which
means ground. This connection to the
earth was even maintained through its translation into Latin where “humus”
means earth which becomes “human.” To be
descendents of Adam, to be human means we were formed from dust… It also means
that it is to dust that we shall return.
We hate to hear this, don’t we? It sounds so morbid, so dark, so
depressing. Why can’t we just talk about
joy and light and life? Life is good, brothers and sisters, but we
don’t belong to this life. This is the reality Jesus faced in the desert
and I believe it is because he faced it in the desert that he was able to
faithfully face it on the cross. Death
is a reality we face in Lent so that when the day arrives, we will faithfully
bear our cross. We can ignore the
reality of death or we can face it. Ash
Wednesday is about facing it, literally as we put the ashes and the cross an
instrument of death upon our faces.
Finding Life
What we will learn as we travel
through this season of Lent is that every one of Jesus disciples, despite
having traveled with Jesus for three years, failed to face the cross with
Jesus. When the cross was before them,
they ran. And yet, over the next five
decades, tradition tells us that almost every one of these disciples would die as
martyrs not all too differently than Jesus.
What changed? What happened that
allowed them to face death? Something
happened to transform this cross from a wicked instrument of death to a
wondrous symbol of life. The answer to
that question comes on the 41st day.
It is what happened on the 41st day that caused the disciples
to realize that they can face death, even the death of the cross, because even
that death is unable to separate them from the love of God. One of those disciples would later write.
“Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or
danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For
your sake we face death all day long: we are considered as sheep to be
slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him
who loved us. For I am convinced that
neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the
future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.”
The way out…
Why Lent? We enter forty days of Lent because Jesus
entered forty days in the desert.
We enter Lent to fast on some of ‘these things’ so
that we might feast on our relationship with God. We enter Lent as a way of facing
death but we can face this death because we know that one has gone
before us and found life.
May God bless you and keep you as we
travel this Lenten road together.
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