We All Need A Good Lent

This devotion on Lent was written by guest writer, Fr. Shawn McCain, of Resurrection South Austin:

During Lent, we begin a season of less: Less noise, maybe less food, less indulgence, less clutter, less noise…Less.

But we do this in order to make more space for one thing: the saving presence of God in us. If you’re like me, Lent always comes at an inconvenient but perfect time. It feels like an imposition, interrupting our rhythms, offsetting our plans, obstructing our comforts. Lent isn’t so concerned with our comfort, but calls our bluff on our self-supported myth that we are invincible, that we stand on the right side of the argument, that “we’ve got this.”

Our world, our nation, could use a good Lent.

It might be easier for us to see that “others” could use a good Lent, less easy for us to recognize that we need it for ourselves.

But when we would rather carry on, Lent interrupts our self-aggrandizing myths with the sign of death, marking us with the truth: we are a broken people, that we are too good at hiding our sin, and we have forgotten that someday we will die. Just as at a baptism we are sealed at our spiritual births with the sign of the cross using oil, so now we are marked as those who die.

When will we sober up to our sin, and receive the mercy of God?

When will realize that, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21)?

When is there a good time for this? We’re so busy, we’ve got a list of things to do. Who has time to realize that our time is limited? I’ve been reading a lot of T.S. Eliot lately, in his poem entitled, “Ash Wednesday” he writes,

“For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice”

Are we those who have denied the voice of God? Have we grown comfortable with the darkness? Am I avoiding God’s invitation to seek His face, to abandon sin and draw closer to Him? Have we become to good at the part we play, acting holy while parts of us rot inside. Are we the people Jesus warns us of while fasting, who play the part of humility and repentance, when their hearts are far from him?

Perhaps today is the day of salvation, the time and place for repentance, when we can begin anew under the mercies of God.

Friends, it may be an inconvenient time, but in Jesus it always the right time, because it is able to wash us, to fulfill every line in the psalmist’s prayer, our prayer:

Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit (Psalm 51)

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. Amen.