Back to Lent

Let’s focus on Lent. I’ve kinda strayed away from the purpose of these ‘Lenten Devotionals’ and gone theological rogue. My bad! As we began our Lenten journey together, the focus was on giving up our lives rather than meat on Fridays, or smoking or chocolate. Although there are a myriad of reasons why you should give the up, Lent isn’t one of them. The focus of Lent is not just about improving ourselves spiritually, but doing that for the sake of living meaningfully because of this improvement. It’s very important that we understand this. The Christian life, and to that I may add spirituality in general, is not about self-preservation, but expending ourselves for the sake of others. It’s not about prosperity but poverty, not success but significance.

This is not what you hear in the airwaves though. And it can be confusing to many people who are genuinely serious about their faith and spirituality. What you hear are things like ‘God will bless you, God wants you to have material wealth, God will give you your heart’s desires,’ etc, etc. if you follow certain steps to victory in faith! What a load of crap. And yet many people believe this mainly because they haven’t been taught any different. Honestly, can you see Jesus flying around the world to rallies in a $63 million private jet if he was here today? Who are these people?? Who do they think they are?? The Pope, the Dalai Lama, they don’t own jets for crying out loud.  They do what most ordinary people do.  They fly commercially. Mother Teresa? Gandhi? They wouldn’t be caught dead on a private jet. But these ‘Christian evangelists’ do all this and more in the name of Jesus, the Humble King. Not so humble are they?

Listen to what Jesus said, “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. (John 15:18-20 New Living Translation)

Perhaps people listen to the message of blessing and prosperity because that kind of message is a pleasant alternative to this, the true message. Jesus is reminding us that if we live as he did, (as disciples are supposed to) we will come under heavy fire because His way is not the world’s way. That’s a hard pill to swallow for most in this day and age of plenty. So what does the life of a disciple look like in our world today?

Theologian H. Richard Niebuhr wrote a little book titled ‘Christ and Culture’ back in 1951 and in it, he outlines a perspective called ‘Christ the Transformer of Culture.’ In practice, disciples of Jesus, work in the culture for its improvement by sharing the gospel of hope, healing and wholeness. This is a simple, yet effective way to live our lives. We don’t hit people over the head with a bible or any other holy relic. We love them with the love of Jesus. The best part of this is, one does not even have to be a professing Christian to do this. Jesus gave us the blueprint for the Kingdom of God here on earth, a place where, the widow and orphan, both literally and figuratively, will not be forgotten, where the powerless will be lifted up, the voiceless will be heard, the blind will see, and the oppressed set free. This is the True Gospel of Jesus Christ, our rudder in this life.

Leave your comments below. I’d like to know what you’re thinking, or just that you are.