First Sunday of Lent (belated)

Don’t worry, we didn’t turn our clocks back a whole week! This is just a little late coming out, mea culpa!

What is Lent? How are we to understand its place in the life of the Christian? Lent is our participation in Christ’s temptation in the desert. We will not emerge at Easter unchanged— we will be better/more like Christ or we will be worse/more like the devil. You cannot passively experience Lent, it will have its effect on you whether you willing participate or not—but beware, you will not be left unchanged.

Immediately after His baptism the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. St. Matthew tells us that for 40 days Jesus fasted so that He became very hungry. This tells us two very important things about both Jesus’s time of temptation and the season of Lent: it is the Holy Spirit who leads us into this time to be tempted, and Jesus fasted with the explicit intention of becoming hungry.  It was not the devil that lured Jesus into the desert and the immediate cause of Jesus’s hunger was not because He failed to find food for 40 days. This period of 40 days was lived with intention, and that is how we must live Lent.

Why did Jesus make himself hungry? The most direct reason was to weaken Himself so as to tempt the devil to tempt Him. When we have a feeling of well-being it is easier to resist temptation; it is easier to resist a delicious piece of pizza when one is well fed than to resist stale bread when one is starving. The devil attacks at the weakest point. This is also one of the reasons (though not the sole one!) of why Lent is a time of fasting and penance. We’re taking away some of the supports that we unwittingly rely on. We do it to purify our hearts for a deeper love of God, to detach from good things that we’ve become too attached to. (Lent is not primarily about giving up sin…that’s what we are called to do every day. It is primarily by giving up good things that Lent achieves its purpose in us.) Christ’s fasting and our own tempts the devil, draws him (in a way) into battle, to put us to the test.

One thing that fasting and penance does is that it reveals to us our own weakness. It is easy to think that we are strong, that we can beat temptation on our own, when all of our needs and wants have been met. Remove some of what we have come (unknowingly) to rely on for strength and we discover that we aren’t quite as strong as we thought. We may be surprised at the beginning of Lent by the force and variety of temptations that assail us. That’s a hint that we need to grow in self-knowledge, and this is a perfect opportunity to do that if we humbly acknowledge our weakness and rely instead on Christ’s grace. Let me be clear, you cannot win by yourself. If you find yourself repeatedly giving in to temptation, that might be a clue that you are trying to rely on your own power.

Christ emerged victorious from His time of temptation and that grace is offered to us as well. We must remain vigilant that we may recognize temptation for what it is so that we can respond effectively. Don’t think you can outsmart the devil, as an angel he is much smarter than we are; but he isn’t smarter than God. Just when you think you’ve mastered a direct frontal assault (temptation) you’ll be overcome by a sneak attack from the rear. Do not be overconfident in your own abilities.

During Lent (and always) the devil does not stick to tempting us only on the good things we have given up, he will tempt us to sin as well. But when we are tempted by the good things we have given up and resist these temptations, we strengthen our will to resist temptation also to sin, even grievous sin. Resisting temptation by good things is a somewhat safer battleground on which to strengthen our will than temptations which are grievous matter.

If we cooperate with Christ’s grace we will emerge from the wilderness at the end of Lent more Christ-like, we will have made more room for Christ to live within us, and we will participate more fully (through grace) in the divine nature.

Lent isn’t a time to merely remember Christ’s life, passion, death, and resurrection; it is a time to experience it more fully ourselves. “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.” Gal 2:20a