Lent is not about giving up stuff.
Lent is about the preparation of our hearts for what God has done in Christ.
Rowan Williams reminds us:
“The word ‘Lent’ itself comes from the old English word for Spring. It’s not about feeling gloomy for forty days. It’s not about making yourself miserable for forty days. It’s not even about giving things up for forty days. Lent is spring time. It’s about preparing for that great climax of Spring time, Easter: new life bursting through death… self-denial isn’t an end in itself but to sweep and clean the room of our own minds and hearts so that the New Life might really have room to come in and take over and transform us at Easter.”
As many start Lent with ashes as the reminder of our mortality, let us ask ourselves, “what will we do with the gift of life we have been given?”
Join Common Grace in rediscovering the power of how Jesus taught us to pray. As we prepare our hearts to offer back to God our lives in this season, lets enter deeply into Jesus’ invitation into God’s heart for the world: the Lord’s Prayer.
Jarrod McKenna is the National Director of Common Grace: A movement of Christians passionate about Jesus and justice. He’s also a teaching pastor at Westcity Church, Co-founder of First Home Project where his family live in community with 11 recently arrived refugees, and is a prominent figure in the Love Makes A Way movement.
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