It’s an ancient tradition. Over the last 1500 years or so, Christians have observed a period of prayer and fasting prior to Easter. In time, a forty-day period (Sundays aren’t included because Sundays are a memorial of Easter) emerged within the Christian tradition and came to be called Lent. The word “lent” is from an Old English word meaning springtime.
The Lenten spiritual journey toward Easter is a time to open oneself to a fuller experience of the mystery of the Divine who is within and around us. The forty days are symbolic of the forty years the Israelites wandered in the desert after enduring lives of slavery in Egypt. The forty days are also a reminder of the forty day fast which Jesus observed in the desert prior to his time as a public teacher and healer. These forty days are an opportunity to come to a closer union with the God of Jesus.
But who is this God of Jesus? What did Jesus tell us about the Holy One?
While Jesus described God in many stories, there are three stories which clearly convey his understanding of God who is Source of Life. Over history, two of these three stories have been repeatedly told by the Christian church during the seasons of Lent and Easter. The third is similar but is often overlooked.
A famous story of Jesus found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, tells of an amazingly generous father who had two sons. The older son was dutiful and serious-minded. He always did what was expected of him. Because he chose to live up to the expectations he believed were set for him as the eldest son, he resented his father for what he thought were his father’s expectations of him. He also resented his younger brother, assuming that the younger was the favorite. As is sometimes the case, the younger brother was a ne’er do well. He took his inheritance and wasted it on loose living in the big city. Hard on his luck, he returns home and asks to just be a hired hand on the family property. We usually hear the story told from the perspective of this younger son who has been called a prodigal. But the story is really about the father. Both sons were difficult children but in different ways. Yet, the father loved them both, was unconditionally supportive of them and nurtured them with trust and respect. Jesus tells us that this is what God is like: a father who cares beyond all limits for two very challenging sons.
Also in Luke 15 is a parallel story. This one is about a woman. It’s a story that’s often missed. Could that be because the main character is a woman? Could it be that we don’t like to think of God as a woman? Those questions aside, the woman has some money: ten silver coins. Somehow, she lost one. She tears the house apart looking for it. (Think about realizing you just lost 10% of all your money. You’d panic, too, wouldn’t you?) When she finds the coin, she has a party to celebrate. Jesus is telling us that this is also what God is like: a woman who is filled with joy because the coin she lost was found.
The writer of the gospel we attribute to John also recounts a story told by Jesus which is much like these other two from Luke. While the stories recorded by Luke would have made sense to those who first heard them, this one would have sounded totally absurd. This is the story of the shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in the pasture unguarded in order to look for the one that got lost. No shepherd would do this. Why risk the herd for the sake of one? Other sheep could wander off, get lost or hurt, or be attacked by predators. But in this story, a different point is made: that the shepherd cares so much for the lost one that he drops everything else to find it. The inference is that God is always seeking to be with us no matter how lost we seem to be in life.
For reasons too complicated to explore in this short essay, many people hold views of God as an angry being who has set us up for failure. This punitive deity will judge us harshly and condemn us to hell (even though our concepts of hell we have today aren’t found anywhere in the Bible). But this angry, judgmental deity is not the God of Jesus. The God of Jesus is one whom Jesus called “abba” or “daddy.” The God of Jesus is one who created all of life to be in harmony and balance. Each of us is meant to fit into that cosmic harmony and balance while living in ways that bring us happiness and fulfillment. The God of Jesus is, above all us, someone who takes delight in us as we are and celebrates the things which bring us joy in life.
During this Lenten spiritual journey, I invite you to return to the stories of Jesus who taught us about a loving, compassionate God….and draw closer to this Holy One. As we open ourselves to the kind and generous presence of the Source of Life, we open ourselves to peace and healing which renew us. In doing so, we will experience the new life of Easter. Amen.
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The God of Jesus–is how Jesus sees the Creator of the Universe. Its existence exists because the–His–Our–Father loves it into existence. Our Father is nameless the way our human fathers–whom we do not call by any name other than Pop, or Dad, Papa or Daddy. Our Father is not a god, the way Greeks and Anglo-Saxons, etc. name powers as “gods.” He is THE creator, and we are his children. For the first part of our lives, we think of God as a god, a person out there–but it all changes when we realize our t-cells and that stone, Mayan children and penguins are beloved. THE message, I think, of Jesus is to wake us to that all-embracing hug. It is more than religion. Period. We are not to pray to Jesus, but to our Father, who gives spiritual gifts–the ones that count.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. Lou