Lent 2016 - The reason for the season

Resilience and self-reliance have long been a British characteristic. Faced with adversity, we pull ourselves up by our boot strings and get on with things. Consistent with this national trait it is reasonable to suppose that many of us think of Lent as a season for self improvement in which God is only marginally involved. Generations have been shaped by the idea that when it comes to facing life’s difficulties, and to self improvement, ‘God helps those who help themselves’. So they can think of Lent as a chance to pick up those New Year's resolutions, that fell by the wayside towards the end of January, with increased determination.

But what makes Lent difficult is that, unlike New Year’s resolutions which almost always aim at self improvement, Lent can very quickly seem purposeless. A couple of days after Ash Wednesday we find ourselves wondering what point there can be in giving up chocolate or wine.

This is one of the ways in which the season corresponds so closely to the forty days spent by Christ in the wilderness where he was tempted by Satan, however we choose to imagine that particular figure. The real temptation lay in purpose, or the lack of it. What was the point? Did Jesus believe in himself enough to go through with this gruelling exercise, let alone the suffering which was to come? Would it not be just as useful, more useful perhaps, if he appealed to people directly by raising his celebrity profile as quickly as possible? Did he even really believe the fantasies he’d created for himself? “If  you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from the nearest tall building and his angels will come to your rescue before you even hit the ground, then they’ll believe you” says the tempter, which was true of course.  But it misses the point.

The temptation was not to doubt himself, or even to doubt God, but to doubt that God’s purpose would be worked out and fully revealed in him through suffering. But does the same apply to our own self imposed discipline during Lent? Here we already run into difficulties. If we equate God’s purpose purely with suffering and privation, and our own suffering as something to be got through in order to win God’s approval, Lent becomes little more than an endurance test . But Lenten self discipline is not that kind of test. The purpose of Lent is not to succeed or achieve higher personal standards through some kind of minor privation. It is to accept failure and our need for grace.

Part of the purpose of Lent is to remind us that if there is anything resembling purpose in human suffering, it is bound up with the purpose of God’s Son choosing to ‘empty’ himself, a literal translation of the greek word used in Paul’s letter to the Philippian church. Christ chose to empty himself of his divine freedom, but not of his divinity, in order to bind himself, like a slave, to human suffering and the consequences of human greed and selfishness. The mystery of suffering, or its ‘purpose’ becomes part of God’s purpose in Jesus Christ, a purpose which is still being worked out in the world today. The outworking of God’s purpose through suffering and what we call sin means that all human relationships are transformed in the minute a person or nation recognises and seeks the grace which comes with forgiveness. With forgiveness comes reconciliation and the beginning of a new creation.

The new creation begins with reconciliation with God, leading to ultimate reconciliation among people and nations. This may sound overly optimistic until we remember that reconciliation depends on all parties to any dispute wanting it enough to be truthful with themselves and with each other about whatever suffering has been caused and the part they have played in it. In other words, there has to be a willingness to say the word ‘sorry’. Reconciliation can only take place when this word has been spoken.

Before we dismiss this idea as impossible, a good Lenten discipline might be to take five minutes of the day to be truly still in the face of this life determining truth. Being still means being open to God so that God, in the nakedness of the suffering Christ, can look at us. In doing this, we see ourselves as he sees us, beginning with where we have wronged or been wronged by others. This is not simply a matter of  going over the past, waiting for anger, guilt or doubt to surface and then quickly burying the whole painful business until the same time tomorrow. It is a matter of allowing transformative grace to penetrate the deepest and darkest parts of our hearts and memories and waiting for God’s purpose to be worked in us in this moment of truth.

If we can spare another five minutes, we might try to imagine the unimaginable, in other words to pray the unthinkable; that all the parties who are contributing to the devastating destruction being wrought at present in Syria would pause and be still in a similar way – and allow the mercy of God into their hearts and minds, so transforming the lives of millions of innocent suffering human beings.