Sometimes, I begin Lent with the intent to clean all the things. I’m going to examine my conscience and confess my sins and clean out the pantry and donate half the contents of my closet to a worthy cause. I’m going to super clean, and when I get to Easter, I will shine with splendid brilliance and so will everything around me. Usually, I crash and burn around the third week of Lent. You, too?
It’s not just that my frenzied physical cleaning is not sustainable over 40 days. It’s that I’ve overlooked the whole point of Lent. It’s not a self-improvement marathon. It’s a journey of spiritual transformation. It’s about turning from sin and becoming a new creature in Christ. When we hit the mid-Lent slump, it can be helpful to re-evaluate the resolutions and prayerfully ponder if we’ve missed the opportunity to become more like Christ on our way to Easter.
Scripture tells us, “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.” (Mt 4:23) Jesus’ purpose on earth was to preach the ways of the kingdom of God, ensuring that the people understood how God’s people were called to conduct their lives. Then, he told them why they should behave that way; he shared the good news and helped them to understand the glory of the kingdom as best as they could on this side of heaven. Finally, he demonstrated the power of God. He calmed the storms, cast out the demons and healed the sick.
St. Matthew’s Gospel is dedicated to carefully delineating the rules of Christian life and sharing why Christians want to live within the ethics of the kingdom of God. The apostle spends a great deal of time showing how God overcomes the natural to infuse the Christian world with the supernatural. And that’s what we need to know in order to make this Lent a good one. We need to know our sins and to repent of our sins, but we also need to know how to grant mercy, and, most of all, make ourselves available to God’s mercy.
We will fall short of the holiness of the beatitudes. We will never fully attain the glory of the Sermon on the Mount during this lifetime. We will stumble, frustrated, over the same sins time and time again. And we might despair of ever breaking free of the bondage of sin in order to live in the freedom of his good plan. It is here in our lack that we meet the hinge of the Gospel. We don’t have to break free of bondage. But we do have to recognize the hold sin has, and we do have to repent of giving our assent to its power. Then we have to ask for the supernatural power that breaks the bonds and sets us free.
Lent is about transformation, not behavior modification. Don’t be so caught up in cleaning all the things and establishing all the good habits in the belief that the actions are the highest goal. You’ll find the actions are unsustainable without a transformation of your mind. Here in this world, let your mind be firmly fixed on another world, on the kingdom of God. And let the thoughts that drive your actions “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom 2:12)
Ask yourself “why?” Why do you want to change? This Lent, sit at the feet of Jesus on a mountain by the Sea of Galilee and listen as he shares what it is to live well. Take to heart his admonitions and examine your own life in their light, then see how he calls you to follow him down from that mountain, to do the work that waits for you among the people God puts in your path. Journey with him from the heights into the valleys and see how he heals the hurting and binds the wounded. Know that his healing is for you, too. He can overcome the struggle and the pain. He can make all things truly shiny and new — even you. Especially you.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes from Connecticut.
