Lent

As I was preaching this past Sunday, the first Sunday of Lent, I have found myself reflecting on lent a lot this year.  What is Lent all about... It's a time of forty days leading up to Easter... a time of preparation... a time of repentance... a time of journeying into the wilderness and wrestling with temptation... To borrow Maren Tirabassis' words (in "Loneliness is a Four Letter Word" The Living Pulpit Jan-Mar 2000):

Lent seems to be about sin and repentance,

But Lent is not the sin and repentance.

Lent seems to be about fasting, praying, giving, meditating,

But Lent is not in the spiritual discipline.

Lent seems to be about spring and light lengthening,

But Lent is not in the season.

In past years I have given things up... taken things up... given Lent up... Some years I have succeeded, other years I have failed.  As I was preparing for the sermon this Sunday I came across a few things that really stuck with me, and so I'd thought I'd share.

“When we resist temptation, 

it is usually because temptation is weak, 

not because we are strong.”

~ source unknown

And the following is a collection of snippets from Ann Voskamp's blog "A Holy Experience"

“I can’t seem to follow through in giving up for lent. 

Which makes me want to just give up Lent….

I forsake

and I fast

and I forget

and I flounder,

I fall…

I fail. 

But lent is teaching me. 

I see how depraved I am. 

How incapable I am in the flesh,

how in bondage I am.

That I can’t keep any law perfectly.

Worse             – oh, this cuts deep –                 

at times… I don’t even want to keep the law.

Lent’s revealing my depravity.

… I can do nothing.

My lent convicts me:

I am a law breaker. 

Forty days I am reflecting on my cross, my sins. 

My lent has me hard after the light… and there is Jesus. 

Jesus with a crown of thorns. 

Jesus bent low,

God carrying my rotting mess. 

Grace doing what I cannot do. 

A failing lent is a good lent

because it is preparing me for the Easter joy of my saviour.”