Lent: Becoming A Better Person

Yesterday I talked about the tradition that many Christians have of "giving up" something during Lent, and focused more on the reason why this tradition developed.  Today, I want to take that same thought another step further, thinking about what the goal of such an endeavor is or should be.

Let me start off with a question.  Why do you want to become a better person?  I honestly think that, if you give some thought to it, the answer isn't always as easy as we might think.  For some, it may be because you see how some particular thing affects you in a negative way.  Think about someone who gives up sugar or soda for Lent.  It's likely that they want to cut down on those fattening things, and recognize that they might lose a little weight and feel better for doing so.

Or, someone may want to give up some bad habit because it affects how others see them.  Think about the person who gives up their habit of making excuses for why they don't do things, or who gives up blaming others for the mistakes and problems of their lives.  They see that other people take up a negative view of them because of this, and so they seek to change how others see them.

Now, I'm not going to go through all the reasons that someone may give up something during Lent.  However, here's what I want to focus on.  For whom do you give up something?  Just looking at the two situations I listed out above, who is the primary beneficiary of the change in life?  It's the person who is doing the "giving up."  A lot of the time, when I hear the things that people give up during Lent, they are focused primarily on that person's own life.

Which leads me to this observation.  The tradition of giving up something during Lent in making ourselves a better person is an admirable thing.  It is always good to improve ones' self.  However, if we ourselves are the only ones who benefit from the change, then I would go so far as to suggest that we have still missed the point.

Becoming a better person should not be focused only on ourselves, but upon everyone that we interact with.  In a sense, we become a better person because it benefits our neighbors, and shows our love to our neighbor as ourselves.  In closing, I'll share a bit of a personal example.

A few years ago, I took up the habit of running.  At the time, I had suffered an ankle injury playing basketball, and had to give up my basketball days.  But I realized that I was getting short of breath when I would preach, and that I didn't have the stamina to get through our regular Sunday morning schedule without getting tired.

I knew that couldn't continue, or that, if it did, then the people of the congregation would suffer just as much as me.  So I took up running because I saw that it not only gave a benefit to me (better health, etc), but it also improved my ability to interact and lead the people of the congregation.  I made a personal change that was for the benefit of my neighbors.

So in closing, I'll simply leave you with this thought, and hope that you think a bit about it today.  How is your personal thing that you are giving up in Lent also serving to benefit your neighbors, and to show that you love your neighbor as yourself?

What did you give up for Lent?

In quite a few Christian traditions, the season of Lent is seen as the time in which you "give up" something.  I've heard about a number of different things that people have given up over the years, such as pop, sugar, snacks, a bad habit, and other such things.  Also, in recent years, there seems to have been a realization that it's not good to only give things up, but perhaps you can even replace them with something good, and so people now add something that they want to incorporate into their life during this season.

This traditional practice is something that can be easily misunderstood.  From an outsiders point of view, it may simply appear that a Christian is trying to make one part of their life better.  While an admirable thing, there is nothing particularly "Christian" in wanting to improve your life.  You'd be hard pressed to find many people who want to destroy their lives, and so most people in the world are trying to find some way to improve their life, whether by giving up something harmful, or by taking on a habit or practice that is beneficial.

This is where it's helpful to look back at some of the history of this season.  Back when the Christian Church fell mostly under one "organization", there was the thought that there were seven deadly "sins", sins which needed to be dealt with on our part in order to have grace from God.  So, during the Lent season, Christians were to prove that they were worthy of Christ's sacrifice by "giving up" one of these seven deadly sins.  Of course, one of the easiest ones would be the deadly sin of gluttony.  After all, giving up some kind of food for a period of about 7 weeks doesn't seem too bad, and might actually be doable.

Thus, the origin of this "practice" is in the battle against the sin that lives within all people, Christians and otherwise.  Giving something up was designed to be a battle against one particular sin that vexed the Christian in his or her life.  Perhaps they would be able to gain a sense of control over that sin, and the Church year provided a forum to work on that particular sin.  Also, since Lent is a season where we focus on Christ taking away our sin, the thought was there that we could give Him "less" sin to have to carry to the cross.

So, rather than ask the question that I used as the title of this post, I'll ask another question.  Why did you give up/take on something for Lent?  Was it to improve your life?  Was it to demonstrate faithfulness to God?  Was it to give Jesus less of a burden on the cross?  Or have you ever really thought about it? 

Lent: The Misunderstood Season

This past Wednesday, many Christian churches observed the beginning of the season of Lent.  That Wednesday is called Ash Wednesday, and I shared a little bit about it in a previous post. 

As we go into this Lent season, I've noticed over the years that there are a number of misunderstandings about this season of the church year.  So I would like to take up a few posts and speak to some of the things that you may or may not know about Lent, in the hopes of clearing up some of those misunderstandings.

The first one for today is that Lent is all about focusing on our sins, and basically, just making ourselves as miserable as possible.  In the eyes of some, Lent almost seems to be a time to wallow in how poor and miserable we are as sinners, to take every sin and turn it over in our minds, so that we get downright miserable thinking about our sin.  I'm not sure, but perhaps the hope in this is to make our sin seem so repugnant that we simply stop doing it.

So let's clear up this misunderstanding.  It is true that we tend to have a focus on our sin during this Lent season, but for many churches and Christians, it is not more focused than at other times of the year.  The thing with Lent is that we think about our sin because we realize that we have been bought at a price, that of Christ's own suffering and death on the cross, and His victorious resurrection from the dead.  So we think about our sin, not to make us miserable, but because we recognize that Jesus died to take away that sin.

Now, another part of the Lent focus is one that is actually also found throughout the year in so many Christian churches.  As we recognize that Jesus has died to forgive our sins, and that He gives us that forgiveness freely, part of our response is to battle against that sin in our lives.  Here's where it gets a little tricky, though.  Because sin is a much deeper problem than just what we do or fail to do, because it is a condition in which we are born in this world, we will never overcome it, no matter how hard we may try.  We may have times in our lives where we seem to have it under control, and then it will suddenly reassert itself.  We can never overcome it on our own, which is where the cross of Jesus comes in.

But the real reason we focus on it is because the season of Lent points us to a very important truth for our lives: God is a God of forgiveness.  God's idea from the very beginning was that no single human being would have to suffer judgment and condemnation for their sin.  If you read John 3:16-17, you see that God sent Jesus in order that the world would be saved and forgiven.  Thus, when we focus on our sin during the season of Lent, it is always to point us to the fact that we have been forgiven by God through Jesus and the cross for that sin, no matter how bad it may have been, and no matter how much we may continue to struggle with it in our lives.

So the focus on our sin isn't to wallow in misery, but to recognize our forgiveness in Jesus.  So as you journey through this Lent season, I pray that you are reminded of your forgiveness which Jesus has purchased just for you, and which you share with every other Christian in the world!

Another of God's Lessons

Please forgive me if I don't make a point very quickly to this blog post.  It's one of those things that is a pretty difficult concept to put into words and to make it make any kind of sense.  So please bear with me.

Yesterday, I was driving from my gym back up to work after my run.  I happened to get behind this white car with a neighboring state license plate.  This car was going a few MPH under the speed limit, and didn't seem to really be paying too much attention to the road.  When we came up to a stop sign, the driver waited for another car to go through, even though the white car had the right of way.  And then, to make matters worse in my eyes, this car was going almost exactly along the same route that I was taking back to work.

I admit that I was very frustrated.  The driver of the white car didn't seem to be too aware of the rules of the road.  That driver also didn't seem to really care much about how his/her driving impacted others, at least in my eyes.  But I remember a thought entering my mind right about the time we pulled up the four way stop, a thought that really unsettled me.

Isn't that exactly how we must seem to God?  Think of it.  He created us, and in doing so, He established a number of "rules" of life in how we should live with each other.  And yet, as you venture through life, don't you come across a number of people that just seem like they aren't aware of the rules of life?  And even if they happen to be aware of them, how many seem to still do their own thing, regardless of the situation or who may be around?

To send Jesus not only to live among people who are like that, but to actually be patient with them, to want them to know that they are His very own, and that He loves them, seems to defy any kind of sense of logic.  I have to admit that I will probably never love the driver of that white car.  And yet, God is so very patient with us when we are like that driver.  When we don't seem to know the rules of life, God is still patient with us.  When we do our own thing and don't really care how it affects other people, God still looks to be patient with us, and to forgive us.

I have to admit that I will never fully understand that attitude of God toward us.  Sure, in my life, I'll find glimpses of it coming to life.  But then, I find myself looking for that opening so I can just get away from the white car drivers of my life.  I may not hold it against them once I'm past them, but while they are in my sights, I sure don't seem to be very caring or compassionate or patient with them.

Can you relate to that?  Does thinking about how God would react toward that other person affect the way you react toward them? 

Ash Wednesday

Today is the one day of the year that you are somewhat likely to see someone at work, school, or walking down the street or in the store with a big cross of ashes on their forehead.  Why is that?  It's because today is the Christian holy day known as Ash Wednesday.

What is Ash Wednesday?  Well, for starters, it's the day that kicks off the season of Lent for many liturgical based Christian churches.  Every year, on the Wednesday that comes 40 days (not counting Sundays) before Easter, the Christian church enters the season of Lent.  Over the next few days, I'll further explain a bit about this season of the church year.

But what is Ash Wednesday, and why the ashes?  Well, it all begins with how God was at work when Jesus suffered and died on the cross.  In that action, Jesus (being both the one true God and fully human at the same time) died with the sin and sins of the entire world.  All the sin and sins of the world died with Him as He carried them into death.  And then, in rising back to life, Jesus declared Himself to be more powerful than our sin and even death itself.

So first of all, Ash Wednesday is a reminder that God has dealt with our sin.  In several places in the Bible, God speaks of Himself as a consuming fire, and as a refining fire.  Basically, what gets consumed in God's presence is all that is sinful.  Sin is burned away and reduced to ash when it comes before the God who calls Himself a consuming fire.

As Christians, we understand that God has consumed our sin in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.  In that action, our sin has been consumed, as though it is now ashes in the sight of God.  Therefore, the ashes that many Christians wear on their foreheads today is a mark of our full and complete forgiveness in the sight of God, because of Jesus and the cross.

That's ultimately the meaning of the cross of ashes.  The person who wears them is declaring to the world that they are one whose sins are as ashes in the sight of God.  By wearing those ashes in the shape of the cross, they are also declaring that God has done this for them through Jesus and the cross, and that they are forgiven sinners because of that loving action.

Radical Grace

I regularly get the opportunity to speak with individuals about the Bible.  This is one of my greatest joys, especially when I get the chance to meet regularly with a person or group of people, where we can build upon the things that we talked about before.  And one thing that I really take a lot of joy in is talking about God's grace that He gives so freely to us.

As I've read more of the Bible, and as I've come to a greater understanding of God's grace, I've also come to realize just how radical and even controversial that grace can be.  The root of the word that we translate as grace comes from the Greek word "charitas", from which we get our word charity.  Just imagine if you were to read through your Bible, and every time you encounter the word grace, you replaced it with charity.  Do you think that it might make a difference in how you understand those different Bible verses?

That's the thing that I have grown to see about God's grace, and that I still find myself struggling with.  Grace is, by its nature, undeserved.  We never do anything to deserve charity.  Instead, it's something that is given to us because we have such a need.  When this comes from God, it means that God gives us freely of those things that we do not deserve.  God forgives us, even though we have done nothing to deserve it.  God makes us His own people, even though we are rebels and sinful and want to exalt ourselves.  God gives us an inheritance of a life that never ends with Him, even though we daily sin by our thoughts, words, and actions, and even though, at the heart of who we are, we are sinful.

To believe that we do absolutely nothing to receive God's grace is downright humbling, and even offensive to us as humans.  We want to believe that we do something, even if it's simply choosing to believe in God.  We want to think that we have to understand God and His grace before we can receive such grace.  We simply cannot stand that God would give love and forgiveness freely, without any action or activity on our part.

Grace isn't so difficult to understand, at least in terms of what it is.  That God freely gives His grace to usis really what is so challenging.  And that's why, in the end, it has to be that way.  You and I, as humans, simply cannot fathom that God would give such priceless treasures so freely, and so the only course left open to God is to give them in that way.  Thanks be to God for His grace!

For God, For Others, Both, Or Neither?

One of the more interesting discussions that I have with people tends to revolve around the reason that we do good thing in life.  As you can imagine, every person seems to have their own idea on why they do the good that they do in life.  For some, it comes from their desire to please others, or to do what others expect of them.  For others, it comes from a desire to do the good that God would expect of us.  And yet, for others, they may not actually care too much one way or the other if they do good, or if it impacts others.

This is actually a line of thought that I have been having for some time.  So I'll start out by posing a brief question, and then showing the different ways that we could answer it.  The question is: Do we do good things for God, for others, for both, or for neither?  How we answer this question says a lot about how we understand God and how we understand life.

If we tend to do our good things for God, then usually we try to tie up those good things in some way with proving that we are good to God.  We do something nice for our neighbor, and we expect God to "reward" us, or think that we have earned some kind of points in His eyes.  The reality is, there are a number of places in the Bible that we could look to support this view.  We hear Jesus saying that if we give a cup of water to one of His followers, we have done it for Him.  That would seem to suggest that the good we do is done for God.

At the same time, we could also say that we do good for the benefit of our neighbor, and not necessarily directly for God.  After all, does God need that cup of water that we give to someone else?  That hardly seems likely.  Therefore, we did something good for the benefit of our neighbor.  God doesn't "gain" anything from our action, and so the primary beneficiary is our neighbor.

Of course, there is always someone out there who will say that the same action of giving a cup of water is done both for God and for the neighbor.  While God does not directly benefit from the cup of water, it fits in line with His desire that we love our neighbors as ourselves.  It directly benefits our neighbor because it is an action of love and care, which helps to build up the community in which we live.  It shares godly love with others, which is something that both God and our neighbor desire.

There are always those who will try to answer this in another way, though.  They are the ones who say that God has made them right through Jesus, and that's all that matters, and so they don't "have" to do good for their neighbor.  While it is true that faith in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is what makes us right with God, having security in that relationship does not excuse us from our earthly relationships with one another.  This is where we don't do them directly for God, but a refusal to do them is also to live in such a way that is contrary to how God created us to live life together, which is simply another way of saying that we live in sin.

So why do you do good in life?  I hope these thoughts help you think that question through and bring a little clarity into the difference between doing good for God and doing good for others.