Lent Reflections
Readings
Joel 2:12-13
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.
Mark 1:13
He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Prayer
Gracious and merciful God,
Bless this time as we enter it together.
Enter our hearts through your words and mine.
Open us ready for Ash Wednesday,
and bring us closer to you in all things.
Amen.
Meditation
Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Destruction is a powerful expression of something very deep. Whether is it ripping or rending your clothes, or smashing a plate, or crossing out something with such force the pen goes through the paper, to rip and rend as self-inflicted destruction seems an odd commandment. Particularly this Lent, when we are without the usual practices such as a Lent group, or they are restricted to being through a screen rather than in person; and when there has been so much destruction inflicted by external forces, this Lent the command to rend our hearts is a tough ask.
Let us look at it another way. We are to rend our hearts and not our clothing. We are commanded to return to the Lord with all our hearts, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. In all that we do not have control over, this is an invitation to a deliberate act of will. All our weeping and mourning is not too big a burden for the Lord to bear. Rather than self-inflicted harm, the command to rend our hearts is possibly an opportunity for self-permission-giving. Without our Lent groups, this Lent may have a far bigger emphasis on the inner journey we all make from Ash Wednesday to the cross and through to the resurrection. The examination of the trials we have gone through during the pandemic might be exactly that to which this Lent lends itself well. More importantly, examining how our hearts have been through trials as much as our bodies and minds means giving ourselves permission to weep and mourn, all with God right there to take it all in.
Reflect on the phrase “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning”
Our inner journey through Lent might feel lonely, but we have forewarning. Last year, our hopes for this season were wrenched and dismembered, and all we saw were the tatters. This year, we can shape our understanding of the season holistically, knowing our limitations from the start. That is how a season is envisioned in the Church - parts of it are intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole. The parts may be small – a weekly devotional practice, a form of fasting, a zoom group, live-streamed Lenten sermons, Passiontide services – but our opportunity is to inwardly examine at every turn, without the whirlwind of extra events and homework around life’s usual ebb and flow.
Having spent years spending Lent thinking about Jesus, this year may be an opportunity to think about ourselves. What have I felt since last Easter? What do I feel now? Have I allowed myself to feel everything fully, to come before God in the safe knowledge of his strength and love and rend my heart with all that has happened, rather than clasp it together under tighter and tighter pressure?
Self-examination is a noble practice worthy of the spirit of Lent. Lent is given to us so that we do not shy away from all that makes life difficult. We fast, we weep, we mourn. For Christ, for the world, and for ourselves. Lent in the time of Covid may be our spiritual catharsis, knowing Jesus is right there with us on the journey, and has been this whole time.
Reflect on the phrase “rend your hearts and not your garments”
Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.
The journey of Lent of often vaunted. But it is truly a progressive season, with a start and a destination. The bigger picture to the passion story is humanity’s return to the Lord. Jesus’ journey to and through Jerusalem show that the Lord is gracious. The grace of Christ as a person is one of the reasons we are attracted to him like a moth to a flame. And grace is not smooth and featureless; Christ’s gracefulness is visceral, his character deep and complex. Gracious and merciful, this is the Lord we journey to return to, again and again, brought to the foreground in Lent. Mercy unimaginable, the strongest of desires to prevent suffering that drives God in among us, to love us from without and within like a mother for her child, overflowing with total good-will to begin to reconcile the whole of creation to himself. Overflowing, yet steadfast, faithful and true. We return again and again, and God is already there, in whichever direction we take, long-suffering and eternally patient. He refuses to let us go or leave things as they are.
Do we feel punished this year? Does the thought of taking on Lent seem like further punishment? It could be the opportunity not for a chore to slogged through, but a graceful and steadfast recognition of our inner journey of returning to God, to something that you may remember from the before-times that may have slipped your grasp, or that you pick up and drop more times than a bar of wet soap. The return to God is the relenting of punishment. Jesus cannot snap his fingers and vanish the load, but he can put a shoulder to the weight.
Reflect on the phrase “For he is gracious and merciful”
He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan
How many clergy will point out the obvious empathy we can have to the wilderness? Inside and out, we may know all too well the presence of dearth, the emptiness to the horizon. The necessary sacrifice and the inner turmoil of not wanting it, not wanting to do the right thing. When will it end? How do we keep going? How are we still here?
Jesus did not chose the wilderness. It was necessary, and important. Even then and even now, even in the midst of everything any person is in the middle of at any one time, he and we make up our minds to be obedient and give God the rightful place in our lives. God works in us and with us, but we must also summon our will and thought to repent and change.
Jesus retreated. He retreated from everyday life, and from other people. And then he returned. The intent of Lenten reflection is not the disconnect but to retreat. To make space. That space for Jesus was extreme. The space we make and find will be different in each of our lives. It is a comfort that Satan was no match for Jesus. It proves that it is possible to resist temptation. Jesus passed his test, and with him by our side, we can beat that which tests us as well. What has worked in past Lents might or might not work this year. Forty days is a long time, enough to move through a variety of ways we might try to make space to find the ones that work for us.
Reflect on the phrase “tempted by Satan”
and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
A taste of the end of the journey. A glimpse of the light on the horizon. All of heaven and all of earth reconciled in harmony. All Christian theology is eschatological. Even in Lent, an undercurrent is always looking ahead to the way things are supposed to be, the new heaven and earth that God will bring about. Our perspective on the here and now is seen in the light of God’s coming glory. It is an aid to motivate us as we look at our lives for the space to make for God.
This year, we may struggle to hope; this Lent, the hope of Easter has a stronger grip on us, for our need of it is great. Through the wilderness, good will out. Through the struggles, the end is coming and it is good. Through Lent, the resurrection is guaranteed.
Whether it is wild beasts and angels, the resurrection and the ascension, or a vaccinated and freed world, Christian hope for the future never dies. Or if it does, it is not dead for long. Jesus is our rock. Our wilderness is not his, but he is with us in our wilderness. He gives us the courage to strike out into it, in the sure hope of the angels waiting on the other side. Lent is nothing without Easter. It has its time and place, a time of turning back to God and opening up God’s place in our lives, and it is all with the purpose of taking us to that cross, that tomb, that garden.
Prayer
God of heaven and earth,
hold us in all that fills our hearts and minds.
We seek you in the coming season,
knowing you are already there.
We ask your strength and courage
that got you through the wilderness
to get us through ours;
and we might reach your side
and hear you greet us by name.
Amen.
