The Empty Places

I have shared the story before about how I and several other family members started practicing Lent. The abbreviated version is that it all started when we visited a Lutheran church in York one Sunday and the minister gave a sermon on Lent. Though intrigued by the idea, and deciding to put it into practice, I would venture to say that none of us, at the time, really understood the purpose or significance of Lent in the Easter season. Rather, we decided to do it as sort of a lark. What would it feel like to celebrated Lent? Could we meet the challenge of giving something up? This led to many years of uninformatively and imperfectly practicing the Lenten tradition of self denial.
Many people who aren't raised practicing Lent seem to think that it is a waste of time. What possible good does it do God or anyone if I decide to give something up for 40 days straight? "I'm not Catholic" is the quote I've often heard when it comes to the Lenten season. Before I started celebrating Lent, I too connected it vaguely with Catholics and the annual appearance of fish sandwiches on all the fast food restaurant menus. And in the back of it all, there was that horrified fascination with the evils of New Orleans and Mardi Gras that somehow made Lent seem like a penance for excesses committed on that day.
As I've practiced Lent, I have outgrown some of these misconceptions and have learned the deeper spiritual purpose behind the practice of the Lenten season. I'm still no expert. I'm sure there are many teachings and traditions about Lent from various church denominations that I'm not even aware of. However, this quote in reference to the Resurrection, from an article in World Magazine, titled "Earth Day", brought together what observing Lent has been teaching me over the past several years. (Warning, following quote is kind of cheesy but bear with me) : "That hollow tomb ached like a bad tooth...But--to her(earth's) surprise--she can't hold Him! Her dead lord is not done--eager footsteps shake her slumber, pounding up a well-worn path in an unworn way: In the opposite direction" (Cheaney 20).
The Lenten season is about defying nature:  physical nature, human nature and spiritual nature.
The saying "Nature abhors a vacuum," is attributed to Aristotle. It is an idiom used to express the idea that empty or unfilled spaces are unnatural as they go against the laws of nature and physics. Although this isn't really true in space, it is true here on Earth because of air pressure and the nature of air to rush into any empty space. However, as people who are not likely to go into space to observe the behavior of nature there, for our purposes, this observation holds true. Just as air seeks to fill voids, our physical human nature seeks to fill voids as well. We fill two holes in our body called the mouth and stomach with food. In one of it's most basic forms of practice, Lent requires the observer to deny filling these voids and instead fast or abstain from certain types of food.
When done as a mere ritual, this seems quite ridiculous, but fasting is a Biblical principle and we know that Jesus fasted in seeking God's will before he began his ministry. The Lenten season is based off the 40 days that Jesus fasted in the desert and put all of his dependance on God rather than "bread" to physically sustain himself.
It seems illogical until you practice it, but denying yourself a substance your body depends on, such as coffee, sugar, cokes, chocolate or something else that you may depend on for energy or keeping you in a good mood, can really increase your dependance on God and give you a good attitude towards life that is genuine and not merely a substance induced mood. One of my teachers in grad school had a surgery during the semester and was struggling with pain from a secondary infection. He made the very insightful observation that it is amazing how much our display of the fruits of the spirit are often actually a reflection that we are feeling physically healthy and satisfied.
By asking us to defy our physical nature, Lent also teaches us to deny our human nature. If I give up something whether food, facebook, television, or even a bad habit such as gossiping, my human nature is that I will fill the empty space I've created by absenting these things with whatever is handy. If I do not purposefully plan for these spaces to be empty so that God can come in to fill them, I will let another distraction, or food substance, or habit rush in to replace the one I've gotten rid of and find my satisfaction in that new thing rather than God, completely missing the point of the purpose behind the self denial. Sadly, I will (and have very much in the past) missed out on the spiritual blessing that emptying a space in my life was supposed to prepare me to receive.
Lastly, Lent is the season that leads up to the ultimate denial of our spiritual nature. Our spiritual nature on our own as humans is not pure and it is not holy. It is sinful, selfish, and passive. Even as Christians who have accepted Christ and walk daily with him, it is still a challenge to purge our natural spiritual nature (or perhaps it would be more Biblical to say non-spiritual nature) from our lives. This is a daily process. If the practice of Lent is observed for the purpose of purging this non-spiritual nature, the blessings and growth in the spiritual nature can be priceless and immeasurable. Trading a few minutes on Facebook or a daily Dr. Pepper for this growth is like trading in a house in  the slums for a mansion in the mountains. Yet as humans we tend to hold on to these things that may be hindering our spiritual growth, or if not hindering would allow us a new avenue of growth, because of our passive nature and opposition to something new. We make excuses that if we give something up it won't really make a difference or if we do decide to give something up it won't really matter if we cheat once or twice. After all, observing Lent doesn't determine whether we go to heaven or hell. No it doesn't, but in my experience it can vastly and irrevocably effect how close my relationship is with God.
After having observed Lent for 40 days, I'm looking forward to getting back on my Facebook account and seeing some pictures that I missed. However, I am more looking forward to Easter Sunday and celebrating the ultimate denial of physical, human, and (non)spiritual nature through the Resurrection of Jesus! A Jesus that I know better through denying myself.