Why We Shouldn’t Take Shortcuts for Lent

With today marking not only Valentine’s Day, but also the start of Lent, it seemed like a good time to talk all things chocolate, love, and surrender.  (OK, maybe not the cleanest of introductory sentences, but every blog must start somewhere, right?)

Now that the awkward intro is out of the way, let’s talk about Lent for a moment. 

It’s a relatively new thing for me, as most evangelical churches don’t do a whole lot about the 40 days prior to Easter, so here’s a quick crash course in case your early experience with people practicing Lent was a bit like mine:  Looking with strange glances at the girls in my class who were giving up sweets, like chocolate, carbs or some other silly thing, quite likely for weight loss, all under the guise of piety, or as we call it, Lent.

The origins of Lent are actually quite interesting.  Families, before the industrial revolution, used to scale back their food consumption at the end of winter, in order to have enough food left to sustain themselves until spring.  Not only was this a pragmatic exercise, it also had the effect of preparing their bodies and minds for the upcoming abundance of spring.  Kinda cool, isn’t it?

So then the church decided that it might be a good spiritual practice to pull back, to abstain from certain things, in order to prepare our hearts for celebrating the resurrection on Easter Sunday.  It was recognized to be observed during the 40 days prior to Easter, giving a nod to Jesus’ 40 day fast in the desert.

Which is interesting, because Jesus’ fast (and subsequent temptation) is a fascinating study. 

If you’re not familiar with the story, Jesus was led to the desert (by God, according to the text) to be tempted by Satan during his fast for 40 days.  Now, most of us would assume the fast itself would be the temptation (it certainly would be for me), but someone recently pointed out that the fast was merely the preparation for the temptation.

What does this have to do with anything, you ask?

To unlock this, let’s look at the temptations Jesus faced:  The first one – hunger (which at its core is really about trusting God vs yourself); the second one – identity (“if you are the son of God”); the third – reward (“all of this can be yours”).  Arguably, we can all identify with these core issues.

So here’s the deal:  what if the common thread with all of these is really centered around one, single word?

SHORTCUTS.

Think about it for a minute: 

Does Jesus trust God to provide, or does he take matters into his own hands, taking a shortcut from trust and running instead to his own comfort?

Does he doubt his own God-given identity and instead take the shortcut of proving himself to others, possibly in an attempt to gain public acceptance and celebrity on the quick? 

Or the last one – if Jesus’ mission is to save the world, and he is offered a glimpse at the completion of his mission (“all of this can be yours”), which can be accomplished in one quick act of submission (to Satan), thus avoiding the brutality of the cross…  Sounds like a pretty appealing shortcut if you ask me…

If you’re a Christian, just imagine for a minute what would have happened had Jesus taken the shortcut away from the cross.  If you believe, as I do, that the only bridge between our sinful nature and God’s holiness is sacrifice, imagine if Jesus had forsaken the cross in favor of the quick, painless, shortcut.

You think humanity is messed up now; imagine humanity with a permanent separation from God’s blessings.

I don’t know about you, but it makes me dang glad that Jesus opted out of the easy path, so that you and I had a chance…

OK, so check this out:  If Satan tempts Jesus with shortcuts, then we can be pretty darn sure he’ll tempt us the same way.

Examine all of your personal struggles under this lens for a moment.  Do you struggle with lust?  Isn’t that a shortcut to intimacy?  Do you struggle with honesty?  Isn’t that a shortcut to approval?  I won’t bore you with a comprehensive list, but would rather encourage you to take a minute to see what your specific issues are, and ask if they point to certain shortcuts your heart is trying to take.

For in a world that’s full of quick, easy pathways (don’t come around me when the internet isn’t working as fast as it should, when I’m stuck in traffic, or when I’m not getting an answer as quickly as I want it – it’s not pretty a pretty sight), let’s take these next 40 days to breathe deeply, and look for blessings that are found in the more difficult path.

Because if narrow truly is the road, then I’m guessing it’s probably a road filled with rocky bumps, sharp turns, steep inclines, and not a shortcut in sight.

So that’s how I’m choosing to practice Lent this year.  I’m choosing to look at my heart’s every pull, every frustration, every ambition, and am going to ask myself if it’s centered around a shortcut.  I’m guessing there will be a big messy pile of truth when all is said and done.

But it’s in digging through that pile that an abundance of blessings is to be found.

And that sounds pretty good to me.  So here’s to hoping you’ll join me in the journey – may it be well worth the effort…