By Jim Denison
Have you heard about the millionaire who is giving away the fortune that made him miserable? Karl Rabeder is a 47-year-old businessman in Austria. He and his wife live in an Alpine lakeside villa when they’re not driving his Audi A8 to his farmhouse estate. Now he’s selling everything he has, donating the proceeds to charities he has established in Central and South America.
“My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing,” he told The Telegraph. “Money is counterproductive — it prevents happiness to come.” Rabeder came to his conclusion while on a vacation in Hawaii: “It was the biggest shock in my life, when I realized how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five-star lifestyle is.” Now that he’s selling his possessions, he says he feels “free, the opposite of heavy.” He and his wife will live in a small wooden hut in the mountains or a tiny apartment in Innsbruck.
Lent is the historic Christian response to the “soulless” state of our lives apart from God. There are more than 2.1 billion Christians in the world; between 80 and 90 percent of them are observing Lent again this year. Why? What is Lent? Where did it come from? Is it relevant for you?
Lent is typically defined as the 40-day period preceding Easter, a time of prayer and spiritual commitment in which Christians prepare to celebrate the Resurrection. “Lent” comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word lencten, meaning “spring.”
Why 40 days? (At the risk of confusing non-Lent-observing readers, I should point out that Roman Catholics do not include Sundays in their count in the days of Lent. Orthodox churches do, so they have a larger number of Lenten days.) Jesus (Matt. 4:2), Moses (Ex. 34:28) and Elijah (I Kings 19:8) all fasted for 40 days; Jesus lay 40 hours in the tomb; the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years of purification before entering the Promised Land; the Great Flood lasted 40 days, as God washed away the evil that had infested the world. Since at least the time of Irenaeus (who died in 202 A.D.), these examples have led Christians to dedicate 40 days for reflection and spiritual renewal.
The season begins with Ash Wednesday, the seventh Wednesday before Easter Sunday. Its name comes from the ancient practice of placing ashes on worshipers’ heads or foreheads as a sign of humility before God — a symbol of mourning and sorrow at the death that sin brings into the world. This observance reminds the worshiper of Jesus’ death and the consequences of sin. Many churches save palm branches from the previous year’s Palm Sunday, which they burn into the ash they use for the ritual. The season of Lent is typically marked by some type of abstinence as a means of spiritual commitment.
What does any of this have to do with those who do not worship in Lent-observing traditions? Every Christian needs time for intentional spiritual introspection and contemplation.
John R.W. Stott, one of the wisest pastors and practical theologians of our time, says that he needs an hour a day, a day a week, and a week a year to be alone with God. Like him, we were all made for communion with our Maker, and need time to renew our relationship with him.
Consider this reflection by C. S. Lewis (from Mere Christianity): “God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
As Augustine so famously prayed, “Thou hast made us for thyself, and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.”
Has your heart rested in God yet today?