I would like to skip Lent this year, because life already feels tragic enough.
Do we really need extra sackcloth and ashes right now? We usually give up something for Lent, and so much already has been taken away. Forty days of fasting and regret seems redundant.
We want everything to be OK, and it just isn’t. We want our country to be OK, and it’s not. Many of our leaders are comfortable telling lies, thinking only of their own interests, and ignoring people who need help. I deleted Twitter/X from my phone and never looked back, but now I’m thinking about getting rid of CNN. We bully other countries. We wage war on the poor, the mentally ill, children, the elderly, civil servants, diversity, science and the environment.
Brett Younger
We want everything to be perfect at work, and it just isn’t. Some of us don’t just take work home with us, we take work everywhere with us. We think about what we did, what we should have done and what we will do if we lose our job.
We want to have enough money that we no longer will think about money, but that isn’t going to happen. We worry about our debts. We worry about expenses we don’t yet have, and expenses we might never have.
We worry about our children. We want them to be healthy, safe and happy. We want them to have more joy than they have. We want to protect them, and we can’t. We want everything in their lives to be just right, and it never will be.
We worry about mistakes we made. We said something cruel, hurt someone who loves us, told a lie. We follow our thoughts around in circles. We worry that we have forgotten something, worry about something we can’t forget, worry about things we are starting to forget.
We worry about existential questions: Am I ever going to get it right? Does anything I do matter? Why don’t I feel loved? Am I ever going to be completely happy? When is it going to get easier?
“We worry because we are not in control.”
We worry about theological questions: How can we believe in God when life is so hard? Why doesn’t God fix things? Is there a God? What happens when we die? What does it all mean?
We worry because we are not in control. We read the news and don’t recognize our country. We get a notice that the job we love has been eliminated, and we have been working hard. The doctor says there is a spot on the X-ray, and we have been working out twice a week. Our child’s grades go down, and we have been helping with her homework. We get a phone call from the police late at night, out of the blue. We find out someone we love is dealing with an addiction we never imagined. We find a letter on the kitchen counter that says, “I’m not coming back.” We didn’t see it coming.
When we figure out that not everything is going to be OK, we are tempted to throw up our hands and give up. The people we love get hurt. We can’t fix everything that goes wrong. We want to trust that everything will be OK, and it just isn’t.
When we are stuck in a tragedy, we look for hope. We want to find beauty in the struggle for a better day, even if we can’t yet see the result of that struggle. We long to see the way the world could be in spite of the way it is. We hope for more. We hope for kindness. We hope for God, which brings us back to Lent.
Lent is being honest about our lives. Lent is trusting God even when the evidence that we should do so is shaky. Lent is a time to trust God when it is hard.
“Lent is trusting God even when the evidence that we should do so is shaky.”
Trusting God will not put us in control, will not get us everything we want or save us from all harm, but if we trust, we learn to move forward without knowing where the next step will take us, walk with uncertainty accompanied by hope and walk in a dark world illuminated by love. Trusting God does not mean we are not afraid of what might happen. Trust means we know who will be with us when it does.
Trusting God does not mean we are naive about the evil in the world. Instead, in the uncertainty of life, in the real and imagined dangers, we learn to trust.
When we are stuck in a tragedy, hope comes from outside.
When the pain is severe, God is near to comfort.
When the burden is heavy, God is there to lean upon.
When depression darkens our soul, God touches us with joy.
When we feel empty and alone, God fills the aching vacuum with love.
We want everything to be OK, and one day, by the grace of God, it will be.
During Lent, we should give our lives to God, in the hope that we will receive them back again, not for a time, but for eternity. The difficulties we go through are terrible and temporary. We make our way to Easter and the promise that, ultimately, God will not let our story end in tragedy.
Brett Younger serves as senior minister at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, N.Y.