Steve's Letter: "What Should I Give Up for Lent?"

I'm not that big on the Christian holy days...but I do like Lent and Easter.

The pagans haven't taken them over yet. They tried, but Easter hats aren't high on the fashion agenda; the Easter bunny, for some reason, has never reached the PR level of Santa Claus; and unless you're a believer, you probably aren't big on fasting or giving stuff up for Lent.

Did you give up anything for Lent?

I did.

I gave up liver, okra and booze.

Not only that, I gave up watching Oprah.

I know you're impressed, but don't be. It was the least I could do after all that Jesus has done for me.

And that is, of course, the problem of sacrificing things at Lent and doing stuff for Jesus. It messes with your head and religion has already done that.

I read the other day something that explains a lot about me and why I'm so grumpy.

Someone said that old people are already angry about being old and it takes very little to tick them off. There's some truth to that. This is true too: Religious people are already weird and it takes very little to tip them over into crazy. Lent will do that to you if you aren't careful.

If you're not careful, when you do sacrifice something for Jesus, you start thinking that you're "getting about even" and become a Pharisee about it, looking down your nose at all those "Christian Cretins" who don't love Jesus enough to repay him for his love.

The Bible says that we're not even close to getting even.Paul asked a rhetorical question in Romans 11:35, "Who has given a gift to him [God] that he might be repaid?" The answer is, of course, nobody.

There is an essential arrogance in human beings that religion will feed if we aren't careful. You start thinking that when you do or don't do (if you're fasting) something for Jesus, it's more sufficient than (or adds to the sufficiency of) Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. It isn't.

Nothing adds to that sufficiency. If you belong to him because of the sacrifice of Christ, it's enough. It's easy to forget the absolute sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice for us. No matter what you do or don't do, nothing changes the fact that what Jesus did on the cross is enough.

There is another area of weirdness in religion in general that sometimes gets magnified at Lent in particular. It's this idea that what we give up is important stuff for Jesus and he should be pleased. That is not what it's about. If you do give up some important stuff, it's to clarify what is really important.

Do you remember Jesus' temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4)? Satan lied to Jesus about what was important. "You hungry? Turn these stones into bread. You don't have much stuff? Just nod in my direction and I'll give you all the stuff about which you ever dreamed."

Serving Christ, taking up the cross, going places where we don't want to go, doing stuff for him we maybe don't want to do or, at Lent, sacrificing something we think is important, isn't God's way of making us miserable. It is God's methodology of clarifying what is really important.

As I told you last month, I've resigned from Reformed Theological Seminary where I teach. My schedule has exploded and the choice was to give up my wife Anna or the regular teaching at the seminary. I told you that I was going to be "Professor at Large." Erase that. They've decided to make me "Professor Emeritus." I'm still going to teach, but my courses will be modular, weeklong courses.

At any rate, as I told you last month, I don't do change well, so say a prayer for me.

But it's even worse. I'm going to make a good deal less money than I did before. We decided that we could probably handle the mortgage on the house where we now live, but it would be far better to downsize, moving into a townhouse or a much smaller place.

So we're going to sell the house and give a whole lot of stuff away.

That's bad. No, it really isn't. I'm not saying that "it really is bad, but Jesus is helping me and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I mean that it really is good. Do you know why?

It's because I'm not giving away stuff that's important. I just thought it was. Jesus is important and people are important...but the rest is just stuff. God first taught me that in the hurricane when we lost so much. Evidently, I didn't learn the lesson well enough and so I need to be reminded.

And speaking of being reminded, this is a wonderful time to remember. On Good Friday ("It's Friday...but Sunday's coming!"), Jesus shared the traditional Passover meal with his disciples, but with a couple of significant changes in the liturgy. Then Jesus said that he wouldn't share the wine with them again "until the kingdom of God comes" (Luke 22:18).

He told us to remember. Remember what?

Remember who we are, whose we are, where we're going and the dinner party to which we're invited when this mess is all over.

He told us to remember the smell of the wine until we got Home!

That's what Easter is about. It's about a party and it's about Home.

A dead man got out of the grave and said we could too.

I don't know when you're reading this. I'm writing it just before Ash Wednesday at the beginning of Lent. If you're practicing a Lenten fast, I want you to know that I just stopped and prayed for you.

"Cool!"

Wait, you don't know what I prayed.

When I spoke to one of the first incoming classes at the Orlando campus of Reformed Seminary, I said, "Your parents are praying that you make a success of this. Your pastor is praying for the same thing. Most of the professors have prayed that kind of prayer for you too. Not me. I'm praying that you fail. Then, when you don't have anything to offer, you'll understand why God's love for you is so unbelievable, astounding and precious."

I prayed something like that for you. I prayed that you just can't be disciplined any longer and the smell of the food finally gets to you, and you break your fast.

And I also prayed that when it happens, God hugs you and you know deeply and profoundly that you are loved not because you are better...

...but because you are his!

Okay. I confess that I never could get liver down, think okra is hairy and slimy (even if it's fried, you remember what it was!) and can't stand adult beverages. I don't watch Oprah either and, even if I did, as a guy, I wouldn't tell you.

But Jesus likes me anyway!

So there!