It's funny how attempting to explain to someone why you do something makes you think about it in totally different ways. So thinking about lent this year, I've started to realize how easy it is in American Protestant culture to completely reverse the purpose and meaning of this season leading up to Easter. We often make sacrifices in an attempt to master ourselves (or, of course, we give up ice cream because swimsuit season is around the corner), when the real purpose is to do the exact opposite -- to remind us that because we come from ashes and dust we cannot, ultimately, master ourselves, but will always be dependent on God. And I don't think that means God is orchestrating every moment of the future and we're just supposed to sit around and wait for it to arrive, like room service on a silver platter. But ultimately, I think it means that God is a lot bigger and more mysterious than we give him credit for, and recognizing our dependence is somehow acknowledging that. In the Hebrew lesson for the day (compliments of my OT class.... since my Hebrew is nonexistent), the word yada, "to know," also means "to acknowledge." So maybe I don't have to know, or understand, God very well in order to acknowledge him and be grateful.
Lent has never been part of G's world, but he gave up chocolate this year. When I was explaining feast days to him (on Sundays, you don't have to fast from the thing you gave up for lent), I was really thinking that I could tough out a lenten discipline for the whole seven and a half weeks. I can handle it, I thought, I don't need no stinkin' feast days. But then, a few days after Ash Wednesday, G asked if it ever got easier, to resist the thing you sacrificed. I said I thought that, in some ways, it gets easier because you adapt to life without it. I was looking forward to the day when I adapted, when I didn't get in my car and absentmindedly reach to turn the stereo on every time before I panicked and realized I didn't have that option. "Maybe that's why you're supposed to have feast days," he said, "so you don't adapt so much and you remember how important that thing is to you, so it still means as much that you gave it up." There I go, learning about lent from a Jewish boy.
2 comments:
I like the idea that giving up something for lent is an acknowledgement of our dependance on God. I struggle with the concept myself, and wonder sometimes if my 'sacrifice' is more a test of my willpower and a way to say to coworkers and friends, "Look, I'm a Christian!!" and less something that I truly do for God. And in the end, it all seems so small, doesn't it? Jesus gave his life up for me, and for 40 days I decide to give up beer.
Lent. I don't do it. This year, however, I might do my own version: give something up between Easter and Pentacost (that's a 40 day span). That way, when I'm done, I'll be flooded with the Holy Spirit. I like that idea. But I mostly don't do it because everyone else does, and it seems a little too close to culture than a biblical meditation (well, for me). Actually, I think I don't do it because it falls too close to Christmas, and the winter indulgences are still raging strong. But this year people are inspiring me. Maybe the Pentacostal lent will prevail.
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