by Jill Lin
Lent reminds us to feast and hope.
Lent is quiet and reflective. It is a time for prayer and to fast from the distractions that keep us from resting in Jesus. It is a time for acknowledging, lamenting, confessing and repenting of the brokenness and sorrows of this world and the sins we struggle with.
It also teaches us to practice joy in the middle of a broken world. It teaches us to hope.
How? Because in the middle of the fast, we also dare to feast. Really?
As a child, like many raised in the church, I learned that Lent was forty days long. That echoed the time Jesus spent in the wilderness, among other periods of forty days or weeks or years of exile in the Bible. Forty is, after all, a significant biblical number.
Yet, when I counted the days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, I was perplexed to discover that there were forty-six days. What? Did Lent end at Palm Sunday? Was there a miscount?
That year that I managed to give up chocolate entirely from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday morning, had I done so a whole week too long?
I was raised in a Baptist church, so the liturgical year was only minimally observed. But as a young adult, I moved to different towns and countries and attended Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican-led congregations too, exploring and being blessed by those traditions. As I did, I discovered my chocolate fast had indeed been longer than intended. But not because Holy Week wasn’t part of Lent. Holy Week is most assuredly the culmination of the Lenten period. Rather, it was because Sundays aren’t part of Lent!
What?
Every Sunday is “The Lord’s Day”, even during Lent. On Sundays, we celebrate the Resurrection. The fast is broken, as we celebrate, even during Lent, the certainty of Resurrection. So yes, I had given up chocolate that year for more days than necessary!
How do we dare, after all, to spend time sitting at the feet of Almighty God? What gives us the hope to confess and lament? How can we approach the throne of grace with such confidence?
Because the Savior who endured the brokenness and sins of this world also conquered them! The moment Jesus died, the curtain in the temple was torn. There is no longer a barrier to the Holy of Holies. We have full access to the Father. The Son who died for us also rose, a foretaste of the future he won for us. And that hope of Easter is interwoven into the Lenten fast. We can dare sit at the feet of Jesus! We can dare to confess and lament without fear of condemnation! In the midst of our broken realities, we can already celebrate Resurrection!
Sunday celebrations in the middle of Lent reflect the hope of Easter in the middle of a fallen world!
As such, it can restore to us some of the beauty of the Sabbath, a day on which we may rest in Jesus, lament or confess freely and also celebrate His Resurrection.
After college, as a young professional working in the 24/7 world of New York City, I began exploring the beauty of a Sabbath rest. Honestly, I’d always enjoyed Sundays with habits of church attendance, delicious English Sunday dinners after service, youth group, and few errands to run in countries where the stores were largely closed on Sundays. Some elements of Sabbath rest were habit. Others were the natural result of those societies’ external rules. Yet I had taken them for granted until living in the city that never slept.
In New York, however, the city was still busy on Sundays. Offices were closed, but a good amount of work could still be done from home or by going into the office anyway, and when work was busy, weekend work was a common reality. Most stores were open. Yes, I went to church. But in the busy-ness of the city, a day off, a real day of rest, a holy day, a day set apart, felt very, very appealing!
It was during that period that I began practicing Lent with more intentionality as well. And when I discovered that Sunday was a feast day even during Lent, well, Sunday was immediately set apart.
When not indulged in all week long, the sweetness of creamy Belgian chocolate, or a well-made latte, became special. And so did Sundays!
Those things I had given up during Lent were transformed. They were no longer just pick-me-ups. They weren’t just fuel. They weren’t instant gratification or temporary happiness. They were no longer allowed to be everyday, momentary substitutes for the true joy found in Christ.
Those were all the reasons I would abstain from them during Lent. They were transformed instead into rare, occasional pleasures to savor and enjoy. The abstinence during the week made the indulgence extra special and joy-filled, not guilt-ridden.
It was an indulgence, not an over-indulgence. It was a celebration, not an addiction.
These good gifts were now transformed into the means to celebrate that it was Sunday! The Lord had risen and this day was special! Taste and see that the Lord is good! These good things had been put back into their proper place. Reserved for Sabbath joy, they didn’t master me. They were now good gifts from the Master.
This Lenten practice of keeping the Sunday feast in the midst of the fast gave me a glimpse, perhaps, of why, historically, the best dishes, the best food and the best clothes were kept for Sunday. They are tangible ways to celebrate weekly the reality and the joy that Jesus is Risen. They are mini-Easters, and as physical, incarnate beings we celebrate in physical, tangible ways.
Lent, then, reminds us to find ways to celebrate on Sunday. Not in a legalistic way. But rather in the way we might save birthday gifts to open on the day, or have a favorite recipe just for Thanksgiving. They distinguish that day from any other.
As we feast in the middle of the fast, this pause from Lent reminds us that in the midst of our broken world, we dare to feast and hope. Lent reminds us that we live in the now-and-not-yet. We live in a fallen, broken world. We live with sorrow and sin. We are mortal. We lament and confess all this.
Yet, by making space for Sabbath joy in the middle of the fast, Lent also gives us an audacious invitation: dare to feast, even in the middle of this broken world, dare to have Resurrection hope!
When we see and lament the horrors on the news of war, natural disaster, police brutality, school shootings, sex trafficking, domestic violence, poverty, racism … We have hope!
When we cry as we hear bad news, receive a frightening diagnosis, walk a loved one through illness, struggle with bereavement or divorce, lose a job, endure a pandemic … We have hope!
When we confess our sins, our gossip, our untruths, our jealousies, our desires for revenge, our hate, our complicity in the brokenness of the world … We have hope!
We have hope in because of where Lent takes us: to the foot of the Cross. The Cross made it possible for us to draw close to God. The Cross means we can lament with hope and confess with certainty of forgiveness. At the Cross we see our Savior take on our mortality and bear our sin, and the sins of the world, be beaten, spat on, and crucified.
For us.
And thanks to that death, the sins and sorrows of this world are not the end. They could not hold him. How do we know?
We are also journeying to the empty tomb. The empty tomb we celebrate each week, every Lord’s Day. Even in the midst of a fast. Even in the midst of our fallen world. Even as we recognize our sin and see the brokenness around us. He is Risen, and we know it. This world is not the end. We have hope!
Lent culminates in the Crucifixion and leads to the Resurrection, the reasons for our hope. Therefore, Lent pauses for the Lord’s Day, and in the midst of our fasting, confessing, and lamenting, we celebrate.
Lent reminds us we have hope. Let us rejoice and keep the feast!