I grew up in a church that didn't recognize the Lenten season. It was a few years ago when I started going to my current church (Irving Bible Church) that I was able to experience this journey.
I have a friend that wrote in his blog, "There is no "season" to repentance. We are to live a life of repentance and repent every day, our whole life long. This whole idea of a season of repentance is wrong headed in my opinion. We die to sin and self and serve the Lord everyday throughout our entire life." I agree with what he says. But can't this season be about more than gorging ourselves on Fat Tuesday and then giving up chocolate for 40 days just to say that we did it? It is kind of like a time to reflect, I mean really it can mean several different things to several different people. The "Bright Sadness" as my pastor calls it because "it's a time of both mourning and celebration". "During this season, we imitate Jesus’ withdrawal into the wilderness for 40 days. We focus on Christ’s battle with Satan that he waged in order to win our salvation." And for that matter, is it wrong for us to take 40 days out of our lives to do away with distractions and go through our own desert (Matthew 4:1) and focus on Christ and at the end of that 40 days celebrate Him? It's a time to walk through the desert and that mourning of Christ dying for our sins but then celebrating the brightness because he rose from the grave! Ann Voskamp wrote a blog about lent, she says, "Lent. It’s the preparing the heart for Easter. Like going with Jesus into the wilderness for forty days, that we might come face to ugly face with our enemy. Our sacrificing that we might become more like Christ in His sacrifice.” She goes on to say,"Lent isn’t about forfeiting as much as it’s about formation. We renounce to be reborn; we let go to become ‘little Christs’. It’s about this: We break away to become.” “Don’t think of lent as about working your way to salvation. Think of it as working out your salvation.” (you can read more of her amazing blog here, http://www.aholyexperience.com/2011/03/why-do-lent-why-a-failing-lent-actually-succeeds-a-booklist/ ) Our pastor made a good analogy last night. He was talking about baseball teams being in spring training. He asked us if they were at spring training to become baseball players? No, because they are already baseball players. They are there to practice and work on their weaknesses to become better ball players...
This journey seems so powerful to me and I'm so grateful that I can celebrate this "Bright Sadness". The Ash Wednesday service last night at my church was so powerful. We go in and sing a couple of songs, it's an intimate spirit, lights low, candles lit all around. You can smell the ash in the air, the ash that came from the burned palm leaves from Palm Sunday. The black cloth laying out so you can go write your "sin" in black marker, the same black cloth that will be draped over the cross, the same black cloth that will become a white cloth on Easter Sunday. The paper, glue & clay that are set out on tables so kids can do a craft to interpret what lent means to them. The stone that we carry with us "as a reminder to identify with Jesus in his willing submission to God’s will, letting “the stones remain stones” and trusting the Heavenly Father in significant new ways".
To learn more about lent you can visit my church website: http://www.irvingbible.org/stories/worship/lent-worship-stories/lent-at-ibc-2/
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