Thoughts on Lent

In my Lent reading for the day I read this lovely exerpt from Eileen Button called "Hollow Sacrifice."  I couldn't say it better myself.

"The annual season of Lent is puzzling to many.  Denying ourselves our favorite treats or habits - even for a short time - seems unnecessarily archaic in our I-want-it-now culture.  Lent is a plodding, definitive crescendo that leads up to the cacophonous noise of Good Friday and the gorgeous aria of Easter Sunday.  It's a season marked by deliberateness and intentionality.

But we often get in the way of our own best intentions.  When fasting from food or technology (or whatever else captures our hearts and threatens to take the place that only God can fill) we might be tempted to feel a sense of pride or arrogance about our sacrifice.  The very thing we relinquish sometimes clamors inside us as a "need" to be met.  Instead of focusing on Jesus Christ, our attention can dangerously be drawn to the very thing we've voluntarily surrendered.

Even so, the practice of Lent can be a valuable discipline.  It's difficult to comprehend what our continual sense of entitlement does to our bodies and souls.  Our culture worships at the feet of pleasure, deeply bowing to all its delicious offerings.  As we "shovel it in," we can become desensitized to our needs - the real hungers - in our lives.  Observing Lent can help us wrestle with the reasons behind our perpetual consumption.  When we decide to relinquish that thing that fails to truly satisfy, we come face-to-face with some tough questions.  Can we believe Jesus when he says, "People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God"?  How can we make room for the Savior in our buried and burdened lives? Can we grasp the reality of Good Friday and live within its irony?

Lent challenges us to consider the honest answers to these and other soul-searching questions.  It invites us to voluntarily jump of the hampster wheel of consumption and experiene the pinch of abstaining from continual, thoughtless indulgence.  It has the potential to give our frenetic material selves a much-needed break."