A Season to Pause

Emily and I have spent a lot of time trying to engage Lent this year. The education has been a rich one and we're in awe of the way God has been actively teaching us. Last Thursday, Betty Smith gave the homily below at Westminster's Lenten Service. The background information, the context, the analysis and meaning, as well as the delivery were both provocative and useful. I'm copying the full text of the homily in hopes that Betty's words will be useful and provocative for you too.

A SEASON TO PAUSE

What exactly is Lent? As one who grew up Baptist, Lent was not part of my spiritual experience. It was something that the Catholic and Episcopalians did. I was always delighted that I didn’t have to give up my “chocolates” or “desserts” as my Catholic and Episcopal friends did, particularly since I didn’t understand the meaning behind it anyway. I was however, always amazed by their discipline of “giving up” something they enjoyed for 40 days! That’s a long time! For me, there was no preparation for Easter except the buying of new clothes. It was the weekend itself that we celebrated which in my house meant a visit to my uncle’s home for the weekend. I have always loved Easter morning – lots of excitement in the air and especially the music. But we certainly did not prepare our hearts for Easter for 7 weeks prior! So when I was asked to give the message for today, I realized that I was not sure I knew exactly what Lent really is. As I asked friends, many of them confessed they didn’t quite understand it either. So I started studying and I have to admit, there is a lot of complexity to these 40 days we call Lent!

The word Lent apparently comes from a term in Old English which refers to “spring” or “lengthen”. It refers to the lengthening of the daylight hour that occurs in the northern hemisphere as spring approaches and it is obviously this time of year that the Church celebrates Lent.

But why does it last for 40 days? Big changes take time. They don’t happen overnight. They need to become routine. From the rain in Noah’s day to the Israelites’ wondering in the desert to Jesus’ time in the desert before the start of His public life, forty has been associated with a time of cleansing, a time to step back and reform our lives so that God is really the center. Lent is a time to “prepare” (prepare being the key word here) to celebrate that New Life that spring ushers in and prepare for the glorious resurrection of our Savior. One thing I had never thought about before was that 40 days is about 1/10 of our calendar year – a tithe of our time!

Lent is celebrated differently in different traditions but all generally focus on some form of the rituals Jesus spoke about in Matt 6:1-6, 16-21 whereby Jesus is calling us to practice our faith through prayer, giving alms and fasting. These passages are considered a “blueprint” for the Lenten season. Some Christians abstain or fast from a normal part of their daily routine during Lent to remind them of the sacrifice of Christ. For some that might mean giving up something like chocolate, TV, soft drinks, maybe we need to give up complaining. Others may take something on like volunteering to work with the elderly or help the homeless, maybe we need to learn to take on being thankful or grateful. Whatever “stuff” or "distraction" is given up or taken on, the intent must be to draw us closer to Christ, to return us to the One who loves us.

I was talking to a friend of mine on Monday night and she told me she had given up not only chocolate but all sweets for Lent. She said every time she craved something sweet she really did think “if Jesus had nails in His body, then I can do without desserts.” I think it is important for us to realize, there is no virtue in this practice of “giving up” something for Lent or doing good works other than as a tangible reminder of the need to prepare our hearts and mind and soul for the good news of the Resurrection. I think my friend got it right.

I like the way the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church describes Lent which seems to incorporate these verses in Matthew 6. “… in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting and self-denial and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word”. As I read this, I thought this season of Lent is really a call to “pause”. We need to pause in order to examine ourselves, pause from sin in our lives and repent, pause to pray and spend time with God, pause from overeating, pause from thinking of ourselves to thinking of others, pause from mindless TV to giving of our time to read and study scripture.

Taking time to pause is what Jesus did when He was led into the wilderness to be tested after His baptism. Jesus spent 40 days pausing to better understand God, Himself and the ministry to which God had called Him. He maybe needed time to sort through the major changes that were about to take place in His life, maybe He needed to get away from family and friends and the familiar routine of life in order to see God more clearly. Whatever, the reason, Jesus retreated into the wilderness for 40 days to fast and pray. Pausing is essential to one’s relationship with God, to knowing who God has made us to be and to what He is calling us to do. I like the way Psalm 46:10 sums it up, “Be still and know that I am God”. To know that God is God is to experience Him in the quiet of our hearts, in a relational way – it is knowing Him as our security and stability.

In pausing we also rest. We rest from our normal activities, preoccupation with the world around us, overeating and our need to be entertained.

Lent calls us to pause and rest in order to spend time with Jesus. It is a time of self-examination and preparation and of taking an inventory of one's inner life. We need the Holy Spirit to help us examine and recognize our own frail condition.

My mother is in a season of “pause” at the moment. She had knee replacement surgery on Monday. I have spent the last 2 nights at the hospital with her. As I looked at her lying in that hospital bed, I thought she has had to interrupt the routine of her life, to pause in order to focus on walking again. She did not want this surgery in spite of being in such pain. What about us? We are so busy in our routine life to stop, to pause, to feel the emptiness, the loneliness, the meaninglessness of life, to recognize our stale relationships with each other and more so our relationship with God.

The surgeon came out of the operating room holding up 5 fingers saying, he had done over 5,000 knee replacements and my mother’s knee ranked in the top 5 worst knees he had ever seen. The whole operating room personnel apparently were in awe that this woman could even walk! She is tough, she has endured incredible pain. Before the surgeon could even begin replacing the knee though he had to cut off all the bone spurs that had formed – a cup full! They were probably the essence of her extreme pain! What is it that is hindering our walk, that's causing us great pain? Nothing is too difficult for our Great Physician to heal. My mother was fighting so hard not to have this surgery (I think fear kept her from having it before now) and yet now she realizes that with a little work on her part in therapy she will be out of pain and able to walk better. I thought, my mother is no different than we all are. We all carry around with us fear, pain on the inside, cover it up and yet if we would take the time to search our hearts, release it to God, what joy we would find. The darkness that engulfs us can be replaced with springtime and joy.

I have come to the realization that we have to go through Lent in order to fully understand the impact of Easter in our lives. Until we realize our human frailty and inability to save ourselves, Easter is just a weekend of wearing new clothes and or a great long weekend to go to the beach or a joyful day of the gathering of families and the excitement of the coming of spring and warm weather.

My friend who gave up sweets for Lent confessed to me that she had already failed in her attempt to give them completely up. It has only been a couple of weeks since the Lent season began. I thought to myself that is a perfect example of why we need Easter. We are human and we fail. Paul tells us in Eph 2:8-9 that it is “by grace that we are saved by faith, it is the gift of God – not the results of works, so that no one can boast”. We are saved by God’s grace. Our prayer during this season of Lent maybe should be that of the tax collector in Luke 18:9-14, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner”.

I think the timing of Lent is perfect. Think about how you feel during this time of year. The dreary cold, the short days and long dark nights, the bare trees, coming home from work in the dark. How we long for the Spring time. The blooming of flowers, the warm sun against our face. Are our souls in the bleak of winter? Is the joy gone? Is there pain dealing with an elderly parent or problems at work or a problem child? Are we just going through the motions of being a Christian? Are we longing for the “Son” to revive us? Do we need the springtime in our souls?

I think Peter had it right. In Luke 5:8 when Peter encountered Jesus’ miracle of the great catch, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “go away from me Lord, I am a sinful man!” Peter knew his own sinfulness and recognized Jesus' holiness. Lent is a chance for us to remember our own darkness/sin that sent Jesus to the cross. [The nearer one comes to God, the more he feels his own sinfulness and unworthiness.]

I am still not sure I understand all the symbolism and thoughts behind Lent but I do have a better picture that I need to pause, to prepare my heart, for the realization that sin still dwells within me, of how much I need Easter in my soul not only for salvation but for the richness of life spent here on earth.

Quite simply put, Lent is a season in our Christian year when we are invited to simplify, to pause our lives in order to focus on our relationship with God.