A few years ago during Lent, as I stood in a prayer circle, I overheard someone exclaim, “The Lord better get over that cocktail I had on Friday night!” My heart hurt for her.
She misunderstood the invitation of Lent and she missed the presence of the Lord who meets us with tenderness.
If I gently tease apart the knots in her declaration, I hear an image of a punitive, demanding God. Her fasting is producing resentment. Fear and anger hover just below the surface of her words. I hurt for her.
Lent is a season of preparation, of repentance, of journeying along with Jesus as he makes his way toward Jerusalem (Luke 9:51).
The discipline of fasting invites me to let go of something that has more hold over me than I like to admit. Or to let go of something that might be separating me from someone else in ways that I don’t ordinarily consider.
The discipline of fasting reminds me that all good things come from God alone. Those little cravings I experience remind me to turn towards Jesus. They help me “to taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8).
Fasting is not a punishment, a requirement, or burden. It is a choice to meet Jesus in a particular space—like a longing, or moment when I want a little indulgence. Instead of fulfilling those cravings, I meet Jesus instead.
All of the spiritual disciplines work this way. They create a space to grow a little more in love with Jesus. They help build muscle in my life. They open up a way for me to participate even more in the life of Jesus. In the same way that a workout opens a way for me to be more active, to have a little more physical endurance, so too do the spiritual disciplines open up a way for me to have a little more endurance and a little more activity in the life of Christ.
With a little bit more of myself surrendered to Christ, the Spirit has more space inside me to grow good fruits. Fasting leads to deeper love, to more hope, and to more trust that the Lord is all I need. Fasting shows me how to detach from what I don’t need and turn toward what I do need.
But fasting is never forced.
Jesus meets us gently wherever we are. My friend in that prayer circle had other big things crowding her interior life at the moment. She could have considered that maybe, that particular Lent, her invitation might not have been to fast. Fasting didn’t lead her to Love. In fact, the work of fasting–or feeling like a failure in her fasting–obscured her from seeing Jesus look at her in love, not judgment.
This Lenten season, my hope for you is that you will enter into the life of Jesus as he lived in the gospels—a life of prayer, of friendship, of meeting people in their suffering, of playfulness and joy, and of sharing food and stories. He shows us how to live in the kingdom of heaven right now. Fasting in Lent is one traditional way to join him on the journey, by joining him in the desert. Maybe that is your invitation, but maybe this year it isn’t. Lent can become a space of adding practices in, too, or of making room to pause in other ways.
My hope for you is that you find a way to walk along that road with Jesus as he travels from village to village, up into the hills and down into the crowds, and takes an occasional boat ride. May we all join him as he makes his way toward Jerusalem.