Lent…self-denial…in a culture of excess, greed, and overindulgence where self-worship is often disguised as self-love it seems that any denial of pleasure is seen as bad or evil. After all if we can do something why not do it.? Or “you only live once” so why not do it?
If lent teaches us a lesson, it is that we give up something we enjoy precisely to remind us that in Christ, we are so much more than the stuff we own or the pleasures we enjoy. Jesus speaks to us the exact words that he spoke to people of his day…”I have come that they may have life and might have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
We hear this yet we look at Christians who give up so much just to be obdient: possessions, opportunites, fame, etc. and call them fools or idiots. Shame on us. What is more, they surrender these things willingly and with joy! Why? This does not seem like the way to abundant life…or at least how we understand abundance…
Let me illustrate. I have often wondered what it must be like inside the brain of an olympic champion, yes even if you grant that they may have been born with physical talent, they still needed to exercise self-discipline, endurance, patience all for that brief series of moments or even seconds when if was all on the line. They did not consider any sacrifice too great for that brief moment of earthly glory, and I begin to understand why Paul used this metaphor in 1 Cor. 9:24-27-“Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified”
Paul is not encouraging self-destructive behavior but self-control. Not allowing the flesh to rule the will, but the other way around.
Those Christians who heed these words understand what Jesus meant by “Anyone who would come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”. These believers, like the olympic athletes, look at their Master and remember His promise of true life and they do not consider any sacrifice too great to cling to the hope of the glory that awaits them. They love their Master so much and want to live a self-disciplined life as He did because He first loved them.
Jesus’ life and teaching smack against our culture’s chasing after material wealth by saying (and I’m paraphrasing) “Any who would do whatever he could to preserve his life selfishly will lose life, but any who would give up everything and follow Me with reckless abandonment will find true life”
Self-discipline, following after Christ, serving Him instead of ourselves is not easy, but one joy is that it is grounded in love and in recognizing He alone has true life. Contrast the response of the rich man in Luke 18:18-30 who desired to follow Jesus yet would not surrender the one thing that meant the most to him, his wealth, with the response of the disciples at the end of both that story and in John 6:66-71 when Simon Peter simply answers Jesus’ question of loyalty by saying “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
In a great, godly marriage, spouses serve one another simply because they love each other and want to see joy in the other, no other reason. We give up all, we surrender all in order to find true life in Christ, and that is infinately greater. In dying to selves and our desires, we gain life and Christ’s desires.
In dying, we live.