A Lost Lent leading to celebration

This year I gave up television and movies for Lent. I know, television and movies are not exactly risen bread or meat, and no, they don’t fall into the food group of chocolate.

But when I thought about what I was going to give up this year, I had to dig into myself and come out with something that forms my life in a way that is not pleasing to God. Food and drink just didn’t cut it. As an avid LOST fan, choosing not to watch the final season of the show until Easter is a sacrifice- and you other LOST fans may think I am crazy. Even more of you may think I’m crazy when I remind you that the men’s gold medal Olympic hockey game was played the Sunday following Ash Wednesday. I have not watched How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, LOST, Alice in Wonderland (or any other movie in theaters for that matter) in nearly a month. It has been hard, but it has been worth it.

Lent has never been something that my denomination commonly practices. It is usually a tradition observed by Orthodoxy or Catholicism. However, a few years ago, I began observing this Christian tradition (in my own little Reformed way) of Lent, and God has both blessed me and challenged me in ways I could never imagine.

Traditionally, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. It counts forty days until Easter, and usually doesn’t include Sundays. In Roman Catholicism, one will abstain from eating all forms of meats, and eat only one meal per day. Lent’s purpose is for believers to prepare - in prayer, penitence, charity/giving and self-evaluation - for the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The forty days mirror the forty days that Christ spent in the wilderness being tempted before he began His ministry.

It is more than that, though. Lent is and should be a sacrifice. It involves pulling the temptations from our own lives and turning that wasted time into time spent with God. Lent cannot be done properly if it is not done for the right reasons.

Reformed Churches, and more broadly, Protestantism, considers Lent to be a practice of personal choice, not an obligation. I have heard of church leaders who encourage Lenten practices and I have heard of church leaders who discourage Lenten practices. I have heard of Christians who fast from all food (but not drink), and I have heard of Christians who will fast from pop or chocolate, from playing video games or going on Facebook. I have heard of Christians who practice Lent because it is no more than a tradition, and I have heard of Christians who allow Lenten practices to penetrate their souls and grow their relationship with the LORD.

I don’t think there is any way that Lenten practices of sacrifice can make us fully understand the sacrifice of God’s Son dying on the cross. I know that giving up my television shows and movie nights are nowhere close to the death of my LORD and Savior. However, as I think about how much richer my devotions have been, how much more time I spend in prayer and petition, and the ways in which God has convicted me during this ‘fast,’ I am eager to re-render myself entirely for the Kingdom of God.

More significantly, though, when I think of how eager I am to figure out whether or not John Locke is walking around the Island in a zombie state, or whether the producers really did bring dinosaurs into the story line (I’m being facetious), I pause and remember that the real celebration is not being reunited with pop culture, but the Resurrection of Christ Jesus and the promise that I have in Him. Though I fail, and though I sin, I hold on to a life redeemed by His blood. When I take those hours devoted to television and movies and spend them with God instead, Lent becomes alive. I am part of God’s love story with His creation and when I understand that, preparation for the culmination of that love story slims in comparison to the glory of God.

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