One of the harsh and undeniable facts of the universe is that you will rarely, if ever, observe someone observing Lent really well. Think about it. By definition, someone observing Lent well will not make a grand display of their self-denial and penitent spirit because that would be disingenuous to say the least.

That leaves us to observe only those people subsuming Lent beneath an American cultural landscape that is OCD about its body image, intoxicating itself on diets and workout programs. “What are you giving up for Lent?” is right on par with “Where are the best places to eat paleo?” That being the case, it would seem that the church has an opportunity to clarify what this whole Lenten season is really all about, and in the process, engage our culture with some ideas it clearly would do well to wrestle with. For instance, self-denial that is ultimately focused on one’s self-image is not really self-denial at all, but its opposite. Say that to the guy giving up dessert for 40 days in the hopes of losing 5 to 10 pounds, and it probably won’t go over well. But speak that truth in light of the fact that Jesus has something better to offer us on the other side of dying to ourselves, and we may be a step closer to engaging our culture in a redemptive way.

Self-focused self-denial is a tricky subject to articulate, but it seems to be a big deal to the Old Testament prophets. And if Lent is primarily about repenting and turning from sin, then the prophets may be the best candidates to inform our Lenten disciplines. The prophet Isaiah saw people weeping and wailing and shaving themselves bald and sitting in ashes and tearing their clothes from their bodies, all in a show of repentance. And then he tells the people doing it that Yahweh has had enough of their self-propagating show and to get on with the real deal before he brings all the chaos and destruction he has planned for them.

And what exactly is the “real deal”? We might arrive at an answer by comparing the following comments: first, “I gave up chocolate for Lent,” and second, “My daughter was on board Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.” The first is a difficulty. The second is a tragedy. The first tests us in our appetites. The second reaches down into the secret places of our souls and makes us hurt where we didn’t know we could feel anything. Those are the places where repentance happens, the places where God wants to heal our wounds once we’ve felt and known how gross they are and how deeply they have implanted themselves within us. Lent is about digging down that deep and seeing how broken we are, how poor we are and needful of grace. It is about seeing our creatureliness, and knowing that we have life only because every single breath is a gift we don’t deserve. That is the real deal that the prophets called repentance. That is where Lent should lead us.

This is not to say that giving up chocolate and the like for Lent is illegitimate, nor do we need to manufacture tragedy for ourselves in order to be repentant. Denying ourselves simple pleasures and comforts can help awaken us to our selfishness and dependability, but if our Lenten disciplines never get us to the point of mourning brokenness and death, we have missed something. Hence, the prophet Joel tells Israel that they should tear at their hearts in sincere repentance rather than tear at their clothes in a grand display.

And with a torn heart comes the desire for life and healing, not only for ourselves, but for all brokenness, for all people and for the world we live in. After all, Lent has more to do with giving us joy than with making us mourn. We enter into the harsh realities of sin and death in order to be more thrilled with the glories of forgiveness and resurrection, the beautiful realities that overwhelm and overtake the harsh ones. So we weep, but only in hope of dancing. We fast, but only in hope of a feast. And, in that vein, the prophets would say that true fasting is not ultimately about denying, but about giving. God’s heart is to feed and heal us, not to steal away our joy like a miserly benefactor. Fasting is not a negative, but entering into the fullness of all that God offers us. And what God has to offer us in nothing less than himself in the person of Jesus Christ, who emptied himself to fill us up. Therefore, true fasting should include moving beyond self-denial to actually satisfying the desires and needs of others. A true fast can not end in taking something away from ourselves; it has to end with using what we deny ourselves to fill up someone else.

So, what have you given up for Lent? You’re a week in now. How are things going? If we are not tearing at our hearts instead of our images, and if we are not emptying ourselves so that others can be full, then we aren’t doing so well, even if we’ve succeeded at staying away from dessert. But if the culture can see the church practicing Lent in an outward posture, where self-denial is not self-focused, then, come Easter morning, perhaps one more harsh and undeniable fact of the universe will topple alongside sin and death.

-Jonathan Allston