Abject relief...

A while ago, Pastor Eric Brown posted the best explanation of Lent that I have ever read/heard.  Why do I think that?  Well, most of what I know about Lent is what we do and why it is helpful to us.  The post?  Well, it's all about Jesus:

What's the Real Focus of Lent?

So, now we are coming to Lent - so what is it's point, what is its purpose? Is it about suffering? Is it about self-denial? Is it about making sure we hear the Word more often (yea midweek services!)?

I hear a lot of things about Lent, and most of the time I think they hit on tangential issues. Here is what I would submit - our seasons in the Church have themes. Advent is about Christ's coming. Christmas is about the incarnation, that God becomes Man for us. Epiphany is about Christ revealing that He is True God.

And Lent - Lent is about Jesus. Lent is the season where we focus most clearly on Jesus taking the battle to Satan - Jesus fighting against sin and death and the Devil.

Think on the upcoming readings - His temptation, He heals, He casts out demons, He takes on false doctrine, He fights against hunger and hardship... and He dies. This is all saying, "Look at Jesus take the battle to Satan." This is, as Luther would have us sing, "But for us fights the valiant one."

Lent is the battle season - it is the Son of God going forth to war for you. That's the real focus of Lent.  ~Rev. Eric Brown

It is no secret that when I read/hear about how I am supposed to be as a good or faithful Christian ... these days ... I fall to pieces and tremble in great fear.  And it is no secret that I have struggled with understanding Lent ever since learning about the church year calendar.  Most Lent sermons distress me, hearing about all the "doing" that is good to "do" during this time.  Lots and lots and lots of talk about discipline.  SIGH.

But I then think about back when I was teaching second grade.  We had these periodic school-wide health themes that would run for a week.  One of them was the importance of brushing your teeth after lunch.  The students were given tooth brushes and toothpaste.  After the week was over, I was the only teacher who continued to have/allow her students to brush their teeth after lunch.  Many of my colleagues said that I was wasting academic time, however it made no sense to me to teach a child that dental hygiene is important and then not allow that child to continue good dental hygiene practices.

For me, that's what most of what I've heard during Lent sounds like.  I want to ask ... loudly ... "Isn't prayer and almsgiving and mercy work important the rest of the year, too?"  

In reading Pastor Brown's post, it struck me that what bothered me most was that Lent didn't really seem to be about Jesus before and now I had something very clear and very simple showing how it is actually about Jesus.

Reading Michael Card's commentaries on the Gospels has fundamentally changed how I read them and how I think about them.  They have also fundamentally changed how I think about Jesus, but not in a way that I can manage to explain.  Mostly, though, reading them, although from a man in a different denomination, I see and hear and feel the same resonance, the same rightness, as I do reading the Christian Book of Concord (BOC).  I know that denominational differences matter.  But the commentaries are not, for the most part, denominational.  They are about Jesus.  They are about the testimonies given about Jesus.  And they are about celebrating the perfection of the Word of God given in those testimonies.

To put it another way—aside from the scary-words-of-Jesus sections with which I need help putting into perspective—I find the same rest in reading the Gospels sections and their commentaries as I do reading the BOC.  Mostly, this is because even though Michael Card is challenging the readers to imaginatively engage with the text considering history and politics and audience the purpose of the Gospels and that engagement is to see and taste and smell and touch and experience Christ crucified for you.  The commentaries are all about Jesus and His ministry and His purpose for coming, not about the believer's walk of faith.

Pastor Brown's post brought such abject relief to my being ... reading that Lent is not about the believer's walk of faith, but about Christ crucified for you.