What are you giving up for Lent? During this season I hear this conversation-starter in restaurants and in other social settings. Various answers follow:
“I gave up Chocolate.”
“Well, I gave up TV baseball. I don’t like it that much anyway; I just watch it because my husband watches it, and if I’m going to be with him, I have to watch baseball.”
“I’m swearing off shopping at Walmart. Whenever I’m there, I end up buying a bunch of stuff I don’t need.”
I find myself asking where did Lent come from, and why do people give up things for it? I can’t find any such religious observance mentioned in the New Testament account of the early church after the resurrection. When did Lent as an observance start and how did it get institutionalized as a Christian ritual?
What I found out is that Lent became a mandated observance at the Nicaean Council held in 325 C.E., a gathering of Christians from various areas where the church had spread in the then-known world. It seems that at that point it had a self-denial and sacrificial emphasis, to somehow make oneself worthy of redemption and to self-atone for sins and shortcomings.
Most historical traditions seem to relate Lent to the forty days of fasting that Jesus did in the wilderness as he battled Satan’s enticement to succumb to the lure of materializing His mission by seeking power, provision, and notoriety of an earthly kingdom. If this is indeed the basis for Lent, it must demand far more than giving up chocolate or going on a diet for 40 days.
Fasting as a form of physical, mental, and spiritual purification has a long history in Jewish law and is a discipline of many world religions. So the days leading up to Jesus’s arrest, trial, abuse, and crucifixion is certainly a sobering and appropriate time for followers of Jesus to fast. The effort to somehow comprehend the suffering of the Master and, as Paul says, to “fellowship in his suffering” can bring us to a more acute awareness of the agony the disciples experienced as they all too often failed to supply the support Jesus needed, especially when their own safety was at stake.
It is important to realize that Jesus’s followers did not know the outcome of those days. Even though Jesus had given plenty of metaphors for what was to come, there was no comprehension of a coming resurrection. Those last days with Jesus was their own testing in the wilderness. Would they succumb to the pressures of the power structures of the ruling strongmen or the ecclesiastical politic?
I hear some people say they are giving up certain “sins” for Lent, like gossiping, drinking, gambling, cheating on a spouse, or lying. Others say they are going to give money to a charity or volunteer for a good cause. It seems the implication is that as soon as Lent is over, they can go back to old behaviors, that Lent is a temporary discipline but not a permanent change.
But the resurrection did come! And the resurrection is all about new life and the power to live it. We are no good at atoning for our own sins, and good intentions to change ourselves are always too weak. Oh, but if Lent can be a turning, an about-face from where I have been to where I long to be, a turning from the regrets of my failures to a vision of the Resurrection and a brand-new life and a fresh attitude and perspective, then a “time” for that turning is a good thing.
In deciding what to give up for Lent, I think of the end of Psalm 139:
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test my thoughts. Point out anything you find in me that makes you sad, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. (LB)
If God points out the things in me that make Him sad, and I willingly give them up for Lent, I know the Lord of Lent will give me grace for each moment as I leave those things behind and choose Life for tomorrow—and forever.
