A Long Lent (Mike Farley)

Although the calendar says that we are coming to the end of the season of Lent today, I am coming to believe that it is helpful for us to approach the time of this pandemic as a long Lent. Lent is a season each year when Christian churches focus again on the story of Jesus’ suffering for our sake. And it is also a season to consider again Jesus’ call to take up our own cross and follow him by his grace on a path of suffering as we serve the mission of God’s kingdom.

In this season of great suffering, it means everything to know that we have a Savior who has drawn near to enter our suffering for us and with us. In the context of the whole Gospel narrative of Jesus’ suffering, there is one specific moment, the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, that has particularly encouraged me and challenged me in facing the weeks and months that still lie ahead for us as church and as a country.

When he reached the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus had just left the warm, familiar setting of his final Passover meal with his beloved disciples to enter the darkness where he was separated from his friends. Isn’t this how we feel ourselves right now? We have been forced out of all the ways of living that have been most warm and familiar to enter a new path that seems dark because what will happen is not clear. And we, too, are separated from each other at precisely the moment when we feel our need for one another most keenly. Our Savior knows what this is like.

At that moment in the Garden, Jesus faced a choice about how he would respond, and his way of responding actually embodies the three traditional Lenten disciplines of spiritual renewal in a way that sets a pattern to sustain us.

First, we see self-denial: Jesus denied himself comfort in order to focus more attention on his mission. In his situation, he needed to deny himself sleep that night so that he could pray. He denied himself freedom by submitting to arrest. And he denied himself his desire to escape suffering by submitting to his Father’s will and embracing it as his own.

Second, we see giving: Jesus gave himself in a radical way. He lay prostrate before the Father and gave himself into the Father’s hands saying “not my will but yours be done.” He embraced the loss of the comforts that make life pleasant in order to give his life for the life of the world.

Third, we see prayer: Jesus prayed earnestly. He was able to deny himself and give himself so radically because in prayer he experienced how radically he was loved and kept by the Father he trusted. Precisely in his most intense moments of fear and suffering, he turned to his Father to walk in communion with the Father.

This story is a challenge to us because it is a pattern that we will need to embrace in this time of crisis in order to follow Jesus faithfully and love our neighbors well. We, too, are being called to deny ourselves many of the comforts that we took for granted just a few short weeks ago. And as sickness and economic hardship increases, Jesus will call us to keep on denying ourselves so that we can give ourselves to others in compassion and in support of all kinds, perhaps in ways we have never yet imagined or experienced. And we, too, are being called to pray. To endure this time we need to seek the face of God who dwells with us, because it is in that place and that posture of heart that we can experience communion with the living God, the almighty God who raises the dead to life. Experiencing the love of the Father in our fellowship with him in prayer can sustain us in dying daily to ourselves and to comforts we previously thought we could never live without.

But this story is also an encouragement to us because it shows that Jesus is only calling us to do something that he has already done for us. He has already walked the path of deepest self-denial in loneliness and loss, of deepest self-giving in his obedience, and of deepest communion with the Father, and all for our sake. When we are afraid of how we will respond in the trials to come, we need to remember that Jesus has already equipped us to deny ourselves, to give ourselves, and to pray more deeply than ever because he has given himself to us. We also dwell in communion with the Father because we are united to Christ who gives us all that we need to follow him by his grace.

We are the in the midst of a long Lent, and that should encourage us, because we know how that story ends. Jesus endured his suffering faithfully for us, and he will give us all the grace we need to endure faithfully in him with faith, hope, and love.

Mike Farley is Director of Community Partnerships for The Carver Project and pastor of spiritual formation at Central Presbyterian Church in St. Louis.

A Long Lent (Mike Farley)

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