We are exactly one day into our Lenten journey. Lent is a long season. While Advent is four glorious weeks of carols, candles, and the expectation of a the Newborn King, Lent is different. . . Lent is longer. . . It is six weeks instead of the quicker four of Advent. There are no Christmas trees or lights to brighten our hearts today. This is Lent, and Lent begins in the winter. The season will end as spring arrives. We will move from darker colder days to ones filled with more sunshine; more warm breezes that chase away the cold.
Another difference between Lent and Advent is the spiritual practice that we are invited into during each season.
Advent is the season of Love, Joy, Peace, and Hope. We light candles symbolic of each theme. . . But Lent is introspective. It is reflection-based. In Lent we are invited to confess our sins before God. A holy Lent involves recognizing all of our sins—the hidden and the public. We leave none of them out when we approach God during Lent. For each sin is another reason why Jesus went to the cross for us. Lent asks us to confess those sins openly to God in response. While we will receive grace in the act of confession, Lent reminds us often that “we are dust and to dust we shall return.”
But as I think about the difference between the seasons I wonder about the difference and how we asked by God to live differently?
What do we do when the challenges of Lent strips away the joy of our faith? How do we find room in our hearts for joy and service when the overwhelming sentiment in Lent is a combination between wishing winter was over and being downcast because of our sin? How does joy spring up within our souls when our hearts feel as cold and brittle as the snow that gently falls outside of my office window this afternoon?
The struggle is real—but so is the offer from God in response.
Sam Storms once said, “Joy is not necessarily the absence of suffering, it is the presence of God.”
While that is indeed a simple sentence that we can remember and consider, it is also profound. For neither Lent or Advent are more or less ‘joyful.” No, they both present us with the opportunity to gather ourselves around God and grow. As we gather around God, as we abide with Him, joy springs up from within. Our souls almost leap because we feel God with us.
Even as we meditate upon our sins and our short-comings, we find that God is welcoming us home. God invites us to take what we think is a season of separation and joy-stripping and turn it into an opportunity grow closer to the God who will sacrifice so much for us in six short weeks.
I don’t know specifically if you are feeling that practicing joy is becoming harder as Lent begins. But if it is, I wonder how Sam’s quote from above might help re-oreint our minds and lives? I wonder if joy is indeed a Lenten practice?
Blessings
Rev. Derek
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