Jesus answered [Nicodemus], "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." - John 3:3

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the season of the church year known as Lent. Lent originated in the early years of the church as a 40-hour fast from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, mirroring the time Christ was in the grave. Over the next few centuries, Lent was expanded to a 40-day period stretching from Ash Wednesday to Easter (not counting Sundays, which are always feast days). The 40 days of Lent were meant to be a reminder of the 40 days of rain during the flood, in which God purified the world; the 40 years of wilderness wandering, in which God purified Israel; and the 40 days of Jesus's fasting in the desert in preparation for his ministry.

Christians throughout the centuries have found Lent to be a particularly meaningful and fruitful season in their spiritual lives. Observing Lent gives us the opportunity to be intentional about creating space in our lives for God. It also gives us the opportunity to be intentional about refraining from sin. By sin, I am not simply talking about "big" temptations (whatever those may be). I am mostly talking about "little" sins, the sins, as Victor-Antoine D'Avila-Latourrette puts it, "that have become so encrusted in our personalities that we no longer recognize them for what they are." In a similar vein, Lent gives us the opportunity to recognize our dependence on God, to see the things that are obstacles on our journey with God, and to take the time to eliminate them.

Given that, how might we observe Lent in a way
that will enable us to do these things?

Fasting is the practice most commonly associated with Lent. Generally, fasting is from food, but I have also fasted from TV, movies, certain kinds of books, and shopping. The year I gave up TV, a friend asked me if I really thought that "sacrifice" was going to somehow make myself more acceptable to God. I told her she was missing the point. The point of Lent isn't what I give up, or even if I give anything up. The point is that I am intentionally creating space in my life for my relationship with God. At that time, I was watching at least an hour, and sometimes two, of TV every day. By giving that time to God, I suddenly had a lot more time to study Scripture, pray, and play. And that is the point of Lent: to create space in our lives for God to have room to enter in.

Once we have that space, we can cultivate it through Scripture reading and study and through prayer and repentance. Since Scripture is one of the primary ways in which God speaks to and educates us, prayerful reading and study give us a chance to listen to what God may be trying to say to us. This Lent, Bethany is sponsoring Lenten small groups again, offering people opportunity to meet with other Bethany folks during Lent to pray and study Scripture together.

Prayer and repentance, what Benedict called "praying with tears," call us to trust in God's infinite tenderness and loving-kindness. Lent is a time when we can journey inward, listening to the voice of God not just in Scripture but also in our hearts. We can get to know our truest selves again, the selves that God created in God's own image. This journey inward can be a rich and fertile one, in which we get to see what is gestating in our inmost soul. We can be intentional about nurturing the beauty we see there. We can get out the pruning shears that are out of control and need to be cut back to reasonable size so they will grow more fruitfully. And we can break out the shovels to turn the ground of our souls so it will be more ready to receive God's words to us - God's Word in Christ as well as God's words in Scripture.

Shovels are also useful for digging up the roots of those plants that we no longer want in our souls, the ones that are ugly, that are taking up space that would be better planted with another seed, or that simply do not belong in a soul that is the home of God. I think it's interesting that the word "Lent" itself comes from the Anglo-Saxon word "lencten," which means spring, the time of the lengthening of days. The coming of spring through the weeks of Lent, whent he bulbs and trees begin to unfurl their leaves and flowers, can be a mirror and a reminder of the blossoming growth of our souls in this season.

If we allow ourselves to take the journey of Lent - creating more space in our lives for God, listening to what God is saying to us through Scripture, and taking the time to really see (and respond to) what's growing in our souls - then our joy in Easter morning will be double. We will not only be celebrating Christ's resurrection and triumph over death, but we will also be celebrating our own rebirth, our "being born from above," as Jesus said to Nicodemus.