Why do we observe Lent?

 

The Season of Lent leads us into a deeper spiritual relationship with Christ. Remembering all that Jesus did for us, it should lead us from knowing about Jesus, to loving and following him wholeheartedly.

 

It is a dark journey in which we confront our mortality, the strongholds of evil in our lives, deeply ashamed of what we became because of the lack of godly discipline that should be an integral part of being followers of Christ.

 

It is also a journey that leads to the light of God’s presence when the cross, the blood, the suffering, death, and the grave of Jesus grant us hope, forgiveness and a deep sense of joy about the love, grace, and the mercy of God.

 

Lent is also a Season for paying attention to the detail of our own lives. We remind ourselves that we are bound for death — and that we are bound to the death of Jesus Christ. Lent provides a time to focus our attention on the mystery at the heart of the Christian life: that through death, the death of Jesus Christ, we have entered new life, received forgiveness, eternal life and restoration.

 

As Paul says to the Corinthians, “We are treated as impostors and yet are true, as unknown and yet are well known, as dying, and see — we are alive.”

This is the paradox of Christian life. We have been joined to Christ’s death once when we were redeemed, but we spend the rest of our lives growing to live into that union.

 

We have already died once, with Christ.

Yet the light of the resurrection waits for us at the end of the journey.

 

Lent invites us to turn again, take up our cross, and move ahead on the way to meet the one who shapes us, marks us, and claims us as his own. Because after dying in Christ comes the miracle to be resurrected in Christ.

May a meaningful journey into the life that Jesus Christ gives, be granted to all God’s people during this Season.