By Penny Biddy

I didn’t know what Lent was until I was a teenager. My childhood church observed a few traditional celebrations (basically Christmas and Easter), but on the whole I grew up in a pretty “low-church” environment. Neither our roots in the traditional Disciples of Christ nor our experiences with the charismatic movement in the ’80s gave us any deep ties to liturgical practice. I remember a sense of discomfort with rituals, but naturally, we still developed traditions of our own. For instance, as a child, I thought the season of Easter preparation meant the several weeks that my mother spent fighting with her sewing machine to produce those all-important Easter dresses!

That was then, of course, and nowadays most Disciples of Christ congregations and many other churches with less liturgical histories have embraced Lenten observations. In my experience, our seeking out of these traditions stems from a persistent, if somewhat vague, sense that something vital was missing without them. 

Although I have been planning and leading Lent services for close to 20 years now, I still feel a bit inadequate to this task, like I’m a guest in a space that isn’t really mine, speaking a language in which I’m not quite fluent. I have no idea whether my reflections on this season are “correct,” in any meaningful sense. All I can really speak of with confidence are the gifts that celebrating Lent has given to me.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like Christian culture is frequently just as obsessed with success as the broader, secular culture. Some believers equate the successful Christian life with perpetual victory over personal sin and freedom from individual suffering. Others emphasize the importance of overcoming institutional sin and relieving the suffering caused by systemic oppression. Disputes may arise over exactly what kind of victory Christians should have, or precisely how to define Christian success, but it seems most of us have heard somewhere that successful Christians defeat sin, fix pain, and overcome suffering. They are strong, victorious, and resilient. 

I realize this is a bit of an oversimplification. Most Christians I know are fully, sometimes painfully, aware that the Chrisitan life is not a steady forward march to victory in either personal perfection or community transformation. Yet, the narrative of triumph persists, and anything other than “success” makes us wonder what, exactly, we are doing wrong. Is anyone else feeling let down by the promise that faith, mixed with a little pluck and ingenuity, can solve all our problems? Steeped as we are in this culture of strength, what are we to do when we cannot ignore our own weaknesses anymore?

When I was new to ministry and trying to understand the purpose of those Lenten services that I was suddenly expected to lead, I came to see Lent as a sort of antidote, even an inoculation, to the constant pressure to be strong and successful that I found elsewhere. Lent gave me a chance to acknowledge weakness, to grapple with the deeply embedded nature of my own sinfulness, to say: I know Jesus is strong, but I am usually not. 

Lent reminds me that I am too small to heal the broken world by myself while still asking me to face my own complicity with the brokenness. It challenges me to continue the work of repentance and repair while knowing that the full healing of the world will take much more than my own work. It reminds me both to do what I can and to grieve over what can’t yet be done. 

Against the frequent pressure to arrive at a victory, Lent offers me the chance to remember that the Christian life is also filled with seasons of wandering, of lostness, of liminality. It reminds me that those times of frustration or pain are not gaps in my walk with Christ. They are part of the story too. Yes, the victory comes, but the waiting, and the failure, and the confusion, have their own place, their own meaning, their own connection with our Savior. Lent reminds me that my weakness and sin, when faced and confessed, become holy spaces, openings through which the forgiveness, love, and strength of God can pour. 

Naturally, you don’t have to observe Lent to learn these lessons. Christians have discovered these insights again and again in countless places and seasons. There is a certain relief, though, in receiving a ready-made time and space for these reflections. For all its gifts, the journey of Lent can be daunting, and if starting it was left entirely up to me, I’m not sure I would get around to it! The communal nature of the celebration is also a gift. Instead of feeling isolated in our sin and mourning, Lent teaches us to face our limitations together as the whole Body of Christ. Daunting though sin and struggle may be, there is healing in facing it together. Every year, I find myself more grateful for this season, and for those who help me embrace it. May we find God’s grace, peace, and hope along the way as we begin this sacred season.

Penny Biddy is pastor of Brook Hollow Christian Church