As we go through the season of Lent, participating in various spiritual practices to challenge our faith, we come to realize our limits. There is a good chance that by the third week of Lent, our original plans for this season of repentance and discipline have been altered, or even abandoned altogether.
The Church Calendar anticipates our need for grace, with the time period for Lent actually being more than 40 days, giving us one day a week as a “cheat day” if you will. Sundays are not intended to be days of fasting and abstinence since every Sunday sabbath is a mini-Easter morning. Even during this season of introspection and repentance, we must take time to recall how the gospel story ends, and to celebrate the hope and grace that we have in Jesus Christ’s great victory over sin and death.
This weekly reprieve also reminds us that we can have some grace with ourselves. We can be righteously disappointed that we have backslid in our Lenten intentions, and simultaneously keep moving forward in our faith.
When we stop and think about it, hitting our limits is actually a marvelous way to get closer to God. When we reach a state of failure we realize all the more our need for a supremely loving God and for an abundantly hopeful Savior. At our end points of embarrassment, when our best efforts fall apart with surprising ease, we realize that we are fallible and fickle. We are human.
The good news is that God loves humans. Lent reminds us of our humanity perhaps more than any other season of the Church Calendar. As we dive deeply into story of Jesus passion we also discover Jesus’ boundless love for humanity. It is not for Jesus’ self-glorification that he willingly pursued his own demise at the hands of humanity. It was for the redemption of wayward humanity, for our ultimate reconciliation with God and with one another.
Even when we are at our worst, Jesus sees us at our best. There is a love Jesus has for you, for me, and for the whole world that sees limitless potential and possibilities within us, no matter what.
As we go further into the Lenten wilderness, where we may lose our way again and again, we need not fear that we are far from Jesus. The presence of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is a companion we can always rely on to love us and see the best within us. May we find hope, comfort, and encouragement in the amazing love of Jesus all year long.
Relevant Reformation 