“A Conversation About Lent” by Suzanne Matthews

I prefer winter and fall when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it. The dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it. The whole story doesn’t show. ~Andrew Wyeth

I look forward to Lent. It seems at the most unbearable point of winter, there is Lent. Lent, the season that prepares us for the green buds and blossoms, the fresh overturning of the earth, and the rejoicing of Easter. Lent is from an old English word, “lencten”, meaning “spring”. The ancient practice was originally to prepare dedicated candidates for baptism on Easter Sunday.

Today’s practice has strayed far from what the forty days of Lent intended to yield in a believer’s heart. There’s little preparation for Lent and the single burning question is what vice is to be foregone for forty days? Although early on fasting was always a part of Lent, the meaning now has been diluted to the giving up of a bad habit, such as a daily drive through the Starbucks line, which I have been guilty of doing and of giving up for Lent.

Lent itself is a season of preparation and it takes preparation. I believe there are some readers who are more than curious, interested in learning why someone might look forward to such a solemn season, or even wish would engage in a deeper personal walk with God within the season of Lent. If this is you, here are a few of my own truisms that continue to change, shape and guide the Lenten season for me.

There is quite a difference between observing and keeping Lent.

Some churches observe Lent. Lent is a season on the church calendar. The services shift a bit, the songs become more somber, the prayers more penitential, the Cross and Resurrection in the near distant view. Some people observe Lent as well. Observe, as an onlooker, as in watching and even participating, but not engaging the heart.

Keeping Lent is an engagement of the heart and mind toward repentance before God. The goal is to humbly and consistently draw close to God to admit and confess sin, for He is the only One who can rid us of our sin. The world, our friends, our counselors, our books cannot do what only God can do. His understanding of our hearts and forgiveness of our sins produces a cleanliness and purity of soul that ushers in a fuller meaning of the Cross and Resurrection and a deeper love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lent is a privilege, a time of resetting.

My pastor wrote this: “For me, Lent has always been about reorientation of my spiritual life. It’s so easy to lose focus on God in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. For most of us, this busyness of life really kicks into high gear during the fall with the uptick in work and school activities. By the time the holiday season rolls around the busyness only gets worse! We add in travel, finals, shopping and visiting family. And of course, into this mix, we throw the flu and cold season. With this as a backdrop, I seem to be spiritually drained by the time Lent rolls around every year. My spiritual direction finder is lost and as a result, I am spiritually scattered. If it helps, think of me like a cell phone unable to lock on to a cell tower.

The season of Lent is the perfect antidote for this problem. It is the season in which the Christian is called to reorder themselves around a Gospel-centered life through the practice of the biblical spiritual disciplines of fasting, deep focused prayer, almsgiving, meditation, and service. There are other disciplines to be sure, but I think that these five, in particular, help us re-center on the Lord and find our spiritual direction once again. The cell phone once again gains a crystal-clear signal.” (Geoff Hatley, Rector, Saint Andrew’s Anglican Church)

Lent is a season of repentance, intensely personal, and between you and God.

I often ask God to show me my sin. I name and confess them and attempt to keep short accounts with God. But, the only time of the year that I enter a season of repentance is during Lent.

Something about the cold and bare brings out the melancholy in me and I long to do a deep dive into my heart, to root out, to burrow in my own heart’s soil and ask God to expose the sin so hidden from my own sight.

It is not an exercise, although reading and writing are an integral part. It is not fun or exhilarating. Even though I look forward to Lent, I go into it with trepidation, a holy awe. I ask God to help me be real and true and face what He shows me and not hide or shove things back under the rug, as I am prone to do. It is humbling, prayerful and deeply reflective, and often what I see I don’t like. It’s hard to keep plodding along. Keeping Lent is a commitment to do the work. I have found that God in His graciousness, does peel the scales off my eyes so that I see the Cross and the Resurrection in a different, fuller light each year.

This year two Lenten books have caught my attention. 40 Days of Decrease by Alicia Britt Chole offers a modern look at fasting. Chole introduces each day a different kind of fast to satisfy, as she puts it, “a different kind of hunger.” Fasting satisfying hunger? I’m intrigued. Additionally, I will be reading a short reflection and answering a single question each day from Listen to Him; Forty Steps on the Road to Resurrection by J.D. Walt (seedbed.com).

But every year there is one book I pull off my bookshelf: Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross, edited by Nancy Guthrie. This classic volume of twenty-five writings includes authors such as John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, R. C. Sproul, Augustine, and Tim Keller. It is as if all twenty-five saints have circled Calvary and point to the Cross with their own distinct and unique view.

For instance, Spurgeon based his sermon on one sentence: Matthews 26:67 – Then they spit in his face and struck him. He writes, “If we want proof of the depravity of the heart of man, I will not point you to the stews of Sodom and Gomorrah, nor will I take you to the places where blood is shed in streams by wretches like to Herod and men of that sort. No, the clearest proof that man is utterly fallen, and that the natural heart is enmity against God, is seen in the fact that they did spit in Christ’s face, did falsely accuse him, and condemn him, and lead him out as a malefactor, and hang him up as a felon that he might die on the cross. Why, what evil had he done? What was there in his whole life that should give them occasion to spit in his face?” He goes on to wrap his entire sermon around one piece of information – Jesus Christ was spit upon.

Nancy Guthrie writes in her preface, “How we need to have our hearts broken again by our sin that put Jesus on the cross. How we need to have our confidence grounded by what Jesus accomplished on the cross. And how we need to have our hope anchored in the promise of resurrection.“

This is Lent for me: keeping rather than observing, committing the time to look at my own sin, being as honest before God as I know to be, and realizing afresh the great cost and the great gift of His forgiveness.  

God alone brings from a season of repentance the rejoicing of Easter!

Author’s note: Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and continues through Holy Saturday. This year Ash Wednesday falls on February 26, and Lent continues until Holy Saturday, April 11. Traditionally the six Sundays of Lent are not counted in the forty days; the Sundays are feast days. Easter Sunday is April 12, 2020.

~ Written by Suzanne Matthews

local artist and author who loves the Lord Jesus.

Tags: Ash Wednesday, Easter, fasting, Lent, Preparation, Repentance, resetting, Spring, Suzanne Matthews