American Idols Don't Do Lent

As "church work" goes, Lent is a bit of a tough sell. What's to celebrate?

It seems a little like asking people to vote themselves off the island, or to vote for your opponent instead of for yourself. Most of us don't need an official notice to begin beating ourselves up! Neither do we need our church home to schedule a six-week season to put ourselves down, emotionally or morally.

The elegant response to those legitimate misgivings goes this way. Lent is part of how we Christians "mark time" differently than the world does. (Wal-Mart is already marketing Easter bunnies and swimming pools.) Lent also ensures that we walk all of Christ's walk, including the cross' defeat, before we fast-forward to resurrection victory. Pilgrims on a journey in faith, we want to make sure that we connect with Jesus' costly grace, not the world's cheap-grace.

But what if the 40 day journey was just that; a walk together through which we join with the God who wants us to come clean with ourselves, and clean with God? A phrase like, honest-to-God comes to mind. Whether we take that frame of mind from scripture: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, or from our catechism: I confess that I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself, the idea of coming clean with God, being honest with God, telling the truth – the whole truth, nothing but the truth - puts us in touch with both our deepest desires and our greatest fears. That's why we take this hardest of walks together.

While most of us won't find our pictures on the wall at the Post Office, when we see ourselves as we really are, we see someone who simply can't "do better" on her or his own. This is as good as it gets, and yet we know God wants so much more for us.

That "more for us" is, finally, Lent's focus - the cross of Christ. Here we can see the lengths we humans will go to avoid how much more God has in store for us. Here, too, we get to see the lengths God will travel to love us into seeing ourselves as God sees us -graced to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out for the sake of God's kingdom vision.

Lent is a time when we can name and claim the freedom God gives us to look deeply at ourselves, not just on the edges where we eat too many desserts, not just on the margins where we hoard our money, not just on the fringes where we use our prayers like so many bargaining chips.

Looking deeply, cross-wise, will change us, honest-to-God. That calls for a celebration!