Lent: Why I Hate The Season But Need To Observe It Still

I love Advent. I hate Lent.

Lent is dark. Advent is light. Lent is mourning. Advent is inviting. Lent is full of solitude. Advent is full expectations and hope. One is waiting for birth. The other is waiting for death.

Then there is Good Friday. Yuck!

In the past, I have started Lent with a visit to the pub. Right after Ash Wednesday, I walk to the nearest bar and order a simple Ale. There I take stock of where I’ve been and slowly accept a season that lays bare the doubt and pain that causes me to stumble. I am both Thomas and Peter as they question the promise of Christ and deny the knowledge of grace. And in return, it is grace that provides me with the space to be honest with my brokenness.

This morning, our youth director, Mark, preached on a text that I normally dismiss pretty quickly: it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich young ruler to enter the kingdom of heaven. As a sewer, I know how small that needle hole is. Forget a camel (even with just one hump) going through that small space. I can’t even get my thread through it sometimes. With my glasses and heavy white lights, I can make it happen after several frustrated attempts.

But Mark turned this text into one of grace and hope. It isn’t so much about what I can do to receive God’s glory but what God does for me that brings about my justification by faith. It is God’s action of love through Jesus that gives me hope that the eye of the needle is widened because God chooses it to be so. The camel is that which I hold so close that it gets in the way of humility and submission to God. My camel is my pride. It’s my arrogance. It’s my complete reliance on myself to control my on destiny.

My camel has two humps for sure. And just when I think I have flattened one, the other grows bigger. I am undone by the distractions of the world: “I want another baby,” “I need that job in Sioux Falls,” “What the hell should I make for dinner tonight.” My self-loathing, my judgmental stance and late night snacking leave me outside the eye of the needle. I can see the other side but can’t quite imagine getting through to the other side.

Mark reminded me that Jesus spoke to the rich young ruler from a place of love. It says, “Jesus loved him.” There is no trick here. No damnation. Jesus loved this seeker and ministered to him from a perspective that would be well understood by his unique context. Yet the questioner walks away, defeated, unable to do that which Jesus rasks. Had this person started from the same place Jesus started: in God’s LOVE, would the inquirer hear Jesus’ invitation not as a “has to” but as a “get to”? Would this postulant be able to hear the joy offered? Would he recognize the invitation to give everything to God and rely on God’s promise?

Self-examination is hard work.

I think the rich young ruler hated Lent like I hate Lent. Self-examination is hard work. Submission is one of the hardest faith practices Christians are called to – at least this Christian. I would rather string Christmas lights, sing Silent Night and rest comfortably in the coziness of Advent. It’s like a Scandinavian hygge. Instead Jesus invites me to stand in my need for grace, to show where I’m cracked and in need of repair. I will know more pain and suffering than I will glory and success.

It isn’t about what I do or say that gets me through that the eye of the needle. It’s how God chooses to love me and to invite the brokenhearted to the joy of salvation. And from that place, all that I have or will have belongs to God. So what if my supper menu includes hot dogs and boxed Mac and Cheese? Whether I conceive or not, my daughter was conceived already. I don’t need to work in a certain place or tend to a certain set of job requirements for God to work through me.

I am enough, because God is enough.

So I am embracing this season of Lent as a rich young ruler who takes up Christ’s invitation to love because God first loved me. I will strive to submit all that I’ve been given to praise my Creator and Savior. Amen.