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Lent

By Published On: January 29, 20240 Comments on Lent

In about three weeks, spring will have arrived in areas of the US, the Super Bowl will be a game of the past, folks will be recovering from Mardi Gras, and some people will have ashes on their foreheads to mark the first day of a season called Lent. We can pretty much guess that the ashes symbolize mortality- ashes to ashes-, but Lent, what’s that about? 

According to the gospels, when Jesus was baptized by John, he heard a voice come out of heaven affirming his mission from God, and he left John the Baptist and went into the wilderness for forty days and nights, where “the angels ministered to him” and where the devil tempted him. 

Although fundamentalists will accept all this at face value, the story is symbolic but not historical. When Jesus left John after being baptized by him, he set off on his mission accompanied by some friends who were also former disciples of John, and he or they no doubt reflected upon their move. Having decided on a course of itinerant action he travelled about teaching and preaching God’s love and justice, and those who heard and followed were captivated by Jesus’ charisma. They got to see who he was. One of the key ingredients in their encounter with him was that he was not egocentric, he did not insist on his own way, he had no box into which he tried to force reality. A story -that of the temptation in the wilderness- came to be describing how he continually refused the temptation to impose his will on others,- no matter how pure. Think of what the devil throws at him. “You’re hungry. Command these stones to become bread. You want the world to see God’s power. Throw yourself off a high place so that God can save you. You want all the world to do God’s will. Make them! …and bow down to me.”

What do these temptations represent? They embody the inclination to make the world as I want it to be. When Jesus encountered people he listened, he understood, he led along a path they could follow. He did not command or impose or insist that others lived according to his prescription. His charismatic self showed others what they could be and invited them to become what at heart they already were. And so his followers created a story to show that side of Jesus, a story about how he refused the temptation to impose his perception on others, instead inviting them to see reality in a new and non-egocentric way.

That’s what Lent is all about. Historically, the essence of the season is self-denial, based on the idea that Jesus was denied earthly comforts while in the desert, and therefore so should we. What we understand now is that what Jesus denied himself was the egocentricity that seems to develop as life moves along, accompanied by the invitation to follow him in denying that egocentricity in our own lives. Lent is not about giving up chocolate. It’s about uncovering the blindness in our perception and being open to what others have to share with us. The irony is that when we give up our narrow and blinding perspective, a whole new world is opened to us and life becomes expansive and joyful. 

This is not an exercise for Christians only. The Buddha also knew. Life is suffering, he said, and the cause of suffering is desire. When we desire, consciously or unconsciously, to have the world be according to our self- contained perception, we suffer, because reality refuses to be confined and distorted according to our ego, and we feel that refusal. The message from Jesus and the Buddha is clear: leave your cave, walk into the light, experience life anew. Whether we be Christian or Buddhist, agnostic or atheist, Lent is a good time to renew our unfolding process.

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