Dust, Repentance, and Feasting: The Hope of the Lenten Season

Photo courtesy of Jonny Swales

An essay reminding of us of three central truths of the Lenten season from Grace Team member, John Colburn.

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Until the last five years or so, the season leading up to Easter or "lent" had been something of a mystery to me. I knew that many of my Anglican, Episcopal, and Catholic friends had certain worship services they attended and that they chose something to fast from until Easter Sunday. That seemed all well and good to me, but I wasn't really sure why - for any of it. However, over the last few years the Lord has given me a deep-seated appreciation for the practice of Lent. The main reason why is that in Lent, we are given symbols and reminders of what it means to be mortal, human, and a sinner. It may seem strange to have to be reminded of any of those things, but the truth is that the world we are always participating in (through our work, through media, through advertising, through our responsibilities to family and friends) is always shaping us and instructing us about what it really means to be human. Unfortunately, many of the things they are teaching you aren't true. 

Lent serves an important purpose in being an intentional breath of fresh air that exposes the ways that all of our day-to-day lives are deforming us, reminding us of important truths, and preparing our hearts for the joy of Easter. There are three specific things that I want to ask you to join me in proclaiming to yourself and to others throughout Lent, and if we do so, I think it will prepare our hearts to receive the good news of Easter in a fresh way when we arrive there in forty days.

Truth #1 You are dust - so stop trying so hard to be infinite.

It would be impossible for me to count the times I have been in conversations where someone has reassured the other that they were "made for more than this". It has become a bit of a cliche for a reason—we often find ourselves in dehumanizing situations in our own sin, or in relationships, or in workspaces and people who love us want to remind us that we don't have to be treated as less than human. However, in the past year, I have found myself sitting across the coffee table or couch from someone I love and feeling the urge to say the exact opposite.

Hear me out: What if you were actually made for less than everything you feel pressured to be?

God created you, and he created you to be a limited being. On purpose. You (and all the rest of us humans) can't actually go very long without sleep before we are reduced to virtually nothing. Within just a couple days you would find yourself unable to think clearly, perform simple tasks, and succumbing to hallucinations, paranoia, and all sorts of nasty stuff.  It's no different with food, water, etc. Yet, if you are like me, every time you look at a calendar with no room or face a task you can't finish before a due date - we feel inadequate and embarrassed. It feels like failure to acknowledge your limitations.

I think this pain arises from the fact that we have been constantly reassured that we are made for more than this. No matter what "this" looks like for us, there's a constant yearning to do more and be more and find what we were really meant to be and experience. We respond to meaninglessness by looking for more responsibility.

However, Lent has a response to all that pressure. Even though so many things around us have tried to convince us that it's not okay to not be enough for everyone and everything, God has never forgotten that we are just dust. We are mortals and limited beings. He didn't make a mistake when he made you and I to be that way. You aren't failing him when you just can't try hard enough to be infinite.

Jesus also holds out a precious promise to us in our inadequacy. He knows what it's like to be limited according to his human body, but He is undeniably able in all things because He is God. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul shares the longing to be rid of our human bodies with these limitations, but testifies to our hope in verses 4 and 5, that in Jesus "...what is mortal may be swallowed up by life" He didn't make you unendingly capable - he made you from dust. So you actually don't have to do everything. You can leave some of it to Him.

Truth #2 You have sinned. By grace, through confession and repentance God forgives sinners, which actually is a big deal.

Growing up in the church (a great gift from the Lord), I had heard the good news that Jesus had died to forgive my sins from an early age. On the other hand, I didn't really know what sins were. It can be easy to accept that your sins are forgiven without ever confessing them or actually repenting. Unfortunately, "Everyone messes up sometimes, it's okay" is not a good biblical theology of sin. The scriptures actually paint a very deep and dark portrait of sin as total rebellion of the creature against creator and the shameful breaking of the covenant relationship by the people of God. 

In Romans 5:8 we are reminded that Christ died for us not when we were simply potential sinners, but "when we were sinners". Sin is a powerful set of shackles - a slavery that we sold ourselves into willingly.  It is a powerful miracle, not just a convenient technicality, that Christ has come to set us free. Jesus makes it quite clear that "unless you repent, you will all likewise perish" (Lk 13:3, cf. Mt 4:17; Acts 11:18; 1 Jn 1:9). Saving faith is one that turns from our sins to Jesus to embrace the free gift of his grace and mercy on the cross.

Lent reminds us that we must acknowledge what our sinfulness has purchased for us - death and isolation from the living God. It encourages to remember the difficult truth that we can muster up no righteousness on our own that will resolve our conflict with God. Though we can be confident that Jesus has made atonement for our sins and will make us clean by grace, confession and repentance remain an essential part of receiving the Gospel by faith. "Repent and believe the Gospel!" are the words we hear on the morning of Ash Wednesday, and they must mark the remainder of our lenten season.

Just as the previous truth, our reflection on this over the course of Lent will culminate in our rejoicing on Easter Sunday. Jesus' victory over sin and death is final in the resurrection. He steps forth from the grave as the firstborn from the dead (Col 1:18) he has nailed our sin to the cross and put it to death there forever (Col 2:8-14), but has raised us to eternal life with him (1 Cor 15:53-57). Sin and death will trample on us no longer. Can I get an Amen?

Truth #3 Restraining ourselves from worldly pleasures isn't primarily about self-improvement, it's about remembering where the feast is.

Now we come to the part about "giving something up for lent". Fasting is a genuine spiritual discipline, and one that I think I often make far too little time for. In part, this was because I never understood what fasting was for. 

I remember the first time I decided to do a fast during lent. In high school a lot of my friends wanted to fast together and help hold one another accountable, so because of peer pressure and a desire to seem like a good Christian I decided to join. To be clear, those are bad reasons. I decided to give up drinking soda, mostly because I knew the amount of soda I was drinking bordered on sinful gluttony, and besides, it would be good for me to lose some weight. That made sense to me. Forty days was a long time, but in the end I did it and I did feel better.

Here's the problem. None of that was a lenten fast. It really wasn't fasting at all. Fasting isn't really about becoming a better person or cutting out sins or unhealthy habits from your life. Christians don't need a special season set aside to pursue those things, those are actually the whole calling of the Christian life. Fasting is about reminding ourselves that the pleasures of this world are actually dust just like us. No matter how much we are told to look to worldly delights for satisfaction or joy, true fulfillment actually can't be found there. 

We choose to fast during lent so that we will be hungry and thirsty and be reminded that our deepest needs are satisfied fully in Jesus Christ and that we will one day feast on rich food and good drink at the very table of the Lord.

I hope by now it's easy to see why a heart that has fasted in such a way, will be primed to rejoice on Easter Sunday. The resurrected Jesus is actually our feast and we get everything we need to live the Christian life directly from him. We were made with appetites and desires, and while even the very good things in the world can reduce their grumbling, only Christ can truly satisfy. Easter reminds us that we are his, and he is ours for ever.

So, Grace Fellowship, can we commit to reminding ourselves and each other during this lenten season that we really are simply humans made from the dust, that in confession and repentance we can receive the unending free grace of Jesus, and that Jesus himself is the fulfillment of everything we want and need? If we can reflect on those things faithfully and together, I know you will hear it in our singing voices on Easter Sunday, just forty days from now.

Lent and Labor

Photo courtesy of Grant Whitty

An article on Ash Wednesday and the daily grind of our 9 to 5s from Grace Team Member, Will Sorrell.

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I remember the first time I attended an Ash Wednesday service. I remember it because I remember removing the ashes from my forehead in the church bathroom a mere ten minutes later. 

The ash and water muddled into a mess as I scrubbed my face. A bunch of us had fasted all day in preparation for the kickoff of a season of fasting, and we were about to feast. I didn’t want the good folks at Krispy Kreme to think I was superfluously religious—demonstrating some kind of faux holiness or pomp and circumstance—or to think I just needed to wash my face.

But this year, I plan to wear my ashes to work. And yes, I’m still somewhat concerned about my public perception. Who wants their coworkers to see them as a Pharisee, holy-roller, or a slob? But I’m wearing them anyway. Of all the places in my life, of all the places in the world, I want to remember that I am but dust in my work.

Ash Wednesday is historically the day that begins the season of Lent--forty days of fasting, with Sundays in the mix for feasting, in preparation for the day and season of Easter. There’s no promised land without the wilderness. There’s no rejoicing without repenting. There’s no feasting without fasting. 

This Wednesday, we will gather early in the morning. We will pray. We will reflect. We will hear. We will confess. And, if desired, we will receive the imposition of ashes upon our heads. Just as early Christians were marked with the sign of the cross in the baptismal waters, we receive this same mark with the sooty dust of palm trees.

And then, all of us, in one way or another, will go to work. Some will drive home to care for a sick toddler. Some will rush to beat the bell and begin a lecture. Some will navigate Excel sheets, prepare litigations, walk door to door, transform the ordinary into art, and minister to sick patients (and yes, those of you in healthcare should probably wash up before walking into the clinic!). 

But for some of you, you may want to keep the sweaty, dirty sign of the cross on your forehead from 9:00 to 5:00. You may want the reflective reminder during a bathroom break that you are a saint still very prone to sin. You may want to remember whose seal you bear before you send that email, ignore that request, or shortcut that assignment. You may want the outward sign of the inward reality you keep trying to tell your coworker about--that Christ Jesus found you in the muck and the mud and brought you into the fold. You may want to remember that your work is but dust, too.

For the longest time, I ‘found my identity in my work.’ This cliche phrase is almost too trite to put into writing, but it was true for me. It still is a lot of the time. I wonder if it is true for you. Does your ability to be yourself at home rise and fall based on your feedback at work? Does busy season have you only looking to the days ahead? Do your thoughts linger on growing the business, selling the product, making the grade, improving the model, or counseling the patient to the point where you cannot rejoice in the messiness of Wednesday night at 6:30? Your work is dust. It is not ultimate. It is not final. It is not defining. And this should bring great, true comfort and joy. But if work is your idol, like it was and still tends to be mine, this brings great, true despair.

Your work is like grains of sand on an expanse of seaside. It’s impossible to grasp, always slipping through your fingers. You can form it into whatever you like, into something in your own image, but the wind and waves will always come. We are told we operate in a free economy, but we lost a truly free economy with the first crunching bite of rebellion in Eden.

Your work is but dust, and you are but dust. And to dust you shall return. And the dust from the ground shall cloud your eyes every day you are alive. The thorns from the ground shall prick and needle your fingertips as you plant, water, nurture, and harvest the fruit of your work. Your labors of love will feel more like toil than rest, more like futility than fulfillment, more like sorrow than success.

But Lent does not last forever, and neither does your toilsome labor. You are but dust--but you are dust with the breath, the Spirit, of the living God inside of you. To dust you shall return--but one day, you will be raised into an everlasting body. You will be raised into a just, thornless economy with a righteous King upon the throne. You will be raised to work in the context of everlasting, final rest. 

That means that every mundane interview, every gruesome paper, every numbing audit, every heartbreaking case, every dirty diaper, every lost patient is preparing you for an eternal weight of glory. Your suffering, your slaving away is not in vain. It’s not in vain because Lent ends with Easter. Without fail, every year, we get to remember that Christ holds the keys to death itself.

This is the kind of freedom that sets you free to labor with a Lenten mindset. Because Christ rose from the dead, you can sacrifice profit for integrity. You can be truly sorry and humbly repent for being short with your teammate. You can carry your cross and empty yourself into servitude because your Lord and Savior did the same thing, and he will never abandon you.

So Wednesday morning, if you can, walk into work with your ashes. Remind yourself that your coworkers also see the futility in their jobs. They also suffer from overwork and underpay. They also want something to just work out for once. Visible sorrow and somber sobriety over sin, evil, and injustice is actually an act of love to those around you. And as you embrace the one who bids you come and die in Lent, you may find those in your place of work celebrating with you in the hope of Easter.

Holy Saturday

“Silent Saturday,” by Holly Hollon

Holy Saturday is the day we remember Jesus lived in the land of death.

In one of the more bewildering scenes in the Bible, the Lord of glory dies and someone takes his body, wraps it up, and buries it.

This is Jesus we are talking about. And he was dead. Really dead. In a tomb dead. As in, a corpse, dead. Dead, dead.

“In him was life and that life was the light of men.” And now, that life and that light were snuffed out.

There will come a day— if it has not come already — when the fact that Christ has gone ahead of us into death will be a great comfort to you. When someone has gone somewhere scary first, it makes you not as afraid to go. It makes you unafraid for the ones who have gone before, because in Christ they are safe.

And Jesus will come out on the other side, alive and well. 

Holding the keys. Death defeated. All enemies under his feet.

We will come through too. He will, “also raise us up by his power.”

He has made the way through the valley of death, and he has made it merely a shadow.

A total disarming.

And we don’t have to be afraid.