Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Lent has begun, and we will be hearing selections from the Hebrew exodus in the Old Testament. In today’s passage from Deuteronomy, Moses presents the Israelite people with a choice: they can choose either life or death, blessing or curse, the one true God or many false gods and idols. This choice is a constant theme throughout the Old Testament, and the Hebrew people struggle, sometimes choosing false gods, and sometimes turning to God. It is a choice and a struggle that have great consequences. In choosing for God, the people can be assured of God’s protections. In abandoning God, however, the people may face their own destruction and damnation.
In many ways, this choice and struggle is like our own. Daily we make decisions that are either for God or for false gods like money and respect in the eyes of others. Surely we strive to make choices that are for God. But what does that even mean? The gospel reading from Luke presents the answer to this question. Ironically, to choose life is to choose death to ourselves, to “lose our lives” for the sake of Christ. In other words, in order to be truly alive, we must sacrifice all selfish ambitions and live only for Christ. It is in doing this that we actually find out who we are. By losing our lives to Christ, we find our lives again in a much more profound way. And this is how we make the choice for God.
In this season of Lent (as throughout the rest of the year), we strive to conform ourselves to Christ. Lent reminds us of the sacrifice that is involved in this endeavor. Christ sacrificed his life to bring life to all through his death. We must make our own, albeit less significant, sacrifices. The practices of Lent – fasting, almsgiving, prayer – are ways that we try to lose ourselves for the sake of Christ. They are how we make choices that are for God...and choices for eternal life.
When framed in this way, particularly at the very beginning of the Lenten season, being Christian seems a daunting task. Can we ever live up to these expectations of losing our lives to Christ in order to find them again more authentically? Can we succeed in our daily penitential sacrifices? The season of Lent serves to remind us that we will sometimes fail; Lent commemorates our sinfulness. We cannot always conform ourselves to Christ as we would wish. And yet, it does no good to berate ourselves when we struggle with our penitential Lenten practices. We must tell ourselves that Lent is not about us as much as it is about God. Hence we must be open to God’s grace in strengthening us, and be willing to try again, with that grace, when we fail. Today, and every day of Lent, let us remind ourselves that we choose eternal life! Let us pray that we may die to ourselves in order to find true life in Christ!
- Maria Morrow