Lent

Lent seems to be about 40 days. I mean, technically, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday is 46 days, but there are 40 days excluding Sundays.

The reason for choosing 40 days is, of course, because there are lots of biblical references to 40 days. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights while people were on the ark. Moses was on the mountain for 40 days when he was given the commandments (and Joshua was waiting for him for 40 days, if I remember correctly). Elijah traveled for 40 days before getting to a mountain and hearing God talk to him with a still small voice. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting around the time of his temptation.

The latter one is the one that Lent seems to be built around. We spend 40 days in self-examination and self-denial in preparation for Easter in the same way He spent 40 days in self-denial in preparation for his ministry. As I thought about that particular 40 days, I realized that we tend to look at the food he was giving up. That is the basis of our mortification. However, he also gave up human interaction for that time.

40 days without people. What would that do to you? How devastating would that be? I mean a day would be nice. A week would be okay. By the second week, though, we’d start talking to ourselves, just for company. And by the end of 40 days? We are tempted to say that having the devil show up would at least give us someone to talk to.

As we think, however, of this 40 days that Jesus spent away from people, of the 40 days that Elijah spent away from people, of the 40 days that Moses spent away from people, we realize that each of them was giving up people for the sake of God. Elijah was headed for the mountain of God. Going from people meant going toward God. Moses was with God for that time. Jesus was lead by the Spirit into the wilderness. While he was there, I’m guessing he was talking with his Dad.

Are we called to give up people for Lent? Are these to be 40 days of isolation for us? For most of us, the answer is “no”. That would be self-serving for many of us more than self-denying. However, I’m guessing that many of us have contact with people that is more nice than necessity.  For those of us who subscribe to blogs, there is a steady stream of conversation which, for the sake of hearing God, could be stopped for a day, a week, a season (or even an afternoon). Reading the paper, watching television, listening constantly to the radio or iPod, discovering that we are having the same conversations about our problems with 10 different people during the course of a day.

It’s not that any of those activities are wrong. In fact, I have a great list of blogs I read, I have several speakers on my iPod.  Jesus came away from that 40 days and spent huge amounts of time with people. Elijah had time with people both before and after his 40 days away. It’s not the people. It’s the time we are with people just for the sake of hearing voices, when those voices keep us from hearing God’s voice.

I’m not giving up people this month. But I’m committed to finding those spaces where I can cut back on human-generated discourse in the desire to make space for Divine presence.

Because that’s a giving up with great return.