A Meditation on Lent through the lens of Romans 5

Therefore being justified by faith,

we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand,

and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

 

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also:

knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

 And hope maketh not ashamed;

because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts

 by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

 

For when we were yet without strength,

in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die:

yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that,

while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

 

 Much more then, being now justified by his blood,

we shall be saved from wrath through him.

For if, when we were enemies,

we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son,

much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

 

Lent is a good season for the Church to meditate on the mysteries of God and the fallenness of our own human condition.  It is an echo of Biblical accounts in which the people of God were prepared in the wilderness; 40 years Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s house, and 40 years he spent in exile tending sheep in the wilderness; 40 years the Hebrews were prepared in the desert, awaiting their next generation’s readiness to enter the Promised Land; 40 days the Lord Jesus Christ was tested by the devil in the wilderness before He began His three year preaching ministry that culminated at Calvary.  The recurrence of 40 (either days or years) as a preparatory and penitential season in Scripture has been repeated in the historic rhythms, liturgies, seasons, and calendars of the Church, and individuals as well as Christian communities have used them to good effect.  In the bustle of everyday life, it’s easy to forget to make time to meditate on God’s Word, to reflect deeply on who we are before Him, and what a life of true Faith and Repentance should look like in our own lives.  We might find it easy to locate the need for judgment and repentance in others, as our modern social media driven mobs of “cancel culture” have made the moralistic destruction of other people a daily public spectacle.  Yet the inclination to deeply meditate on one’s own short comings, to sit humbly before the light and mirror of God’s Law to allow the Holy Spirit to prick our own conscience and drive us to authentic repentance, is an act of faith which easily slips by each day… until days become months, months become years, and years become lifetimes.

 

Even so, there is a danger in such seasons of which all must be mindful.  When Lent becomes a moralistic discussion of, “What did you give up this year?” it can seem to be an exercise in self righteous comparisons.  One may look down their nose on the person who gave up chocolate for 40 days, knowing that they instead gave up coffee; another may look down on both, knowing they gave up meat; another might feel triumphant in giving up time to do service of ostensibly good works, another in giving up money, another in giving up comfort, and so forth.  Such comparative exercises assume greater piety with greater sacrifice, and infer a greater reward for the most pious.  Such shortsighted experiments are not honest penitential preparation to encounter God, but prideful exercises in elevating one’s self, or one’s community, above others.  While temporarily giving up chocolate or coffee or money or time might help address personal sins of gluttony and avarice, even these sins are often only laid down for a time, with the expectation of picking them all up again when Easter comes. And the greater sins of the heart, of the pride and covetousness and hatred which form an individual’s own self-worship and violation of the First Commandment, go unaddressed and ignored.  Such an impenitent soul clings to their self-imposed works of righteousness, thinking these dirty, polluted rags can be used to rub away the stains of sin from their own soul, all the while being driven further and further from saving faith.  Self-sacrifice can be good in its season, but never when used to bolster pride, or to attempt to earn grace.

 

The truth of the matter is what St. Paul sets forth in his epistle to the church at Rome.  We do not save ourselves by our works, no matter how pious we may think them to be.  Rather we are saved by the grace which comes from Jesus’ own life, death, and resurrection alone—a grace already earned by Him through His Cross, and which we can only receive as a gift by faith.  Of the great lessons of preparation and penitence we could learn in Lent, not least is that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Humanity had not prepared itself to be saved, let alone earned righteousness before God.  On the contrary, humanity as a whole, and every individual human being, had earned death and destruction through the wickedness which corrupted them to their core.  Jesus didn’t come to help good people get better, but to save lost and wicked people who didn’t even know how bad they were.  While we were yet sinners, lost in our damnable pride, our irrational philosophies, and murderous passions, Jesus gave His life as a ransom for ours, that we might be reconciled to the Father through Him.  Jesus knows all too well what our condition is without Him and His grace, and what our final sentence will be if we stand before Him to be judged according to the Law on the basis of our own works.  Jesus’ perfect knowledge and wisdom, motivated by His perfect love and compassion, and empowered by His divine omnipotence, moved Him to dwell among us, full of grace and truth; to suffer persecution, rejection, and false conviction at the hands of evil men; to be murdered upon a Roman cross by the urging of His people’s religious leaders; to be buried in a stone tomb, descend into hell, and arise the third day never to die again; to ascend to the Father as our Intercessor at His Right Hand, our High Priest who offered Himself as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world; to send the Holy Spirit by His Word of Law and Gospel to enlighten all who would hear, repent, and believe in Him; to give His people new life from above, an eternal life that could never be extinguished no matter what happened in this world.

 

This is the truth and the penitence of Lent, which prepares one to see Easter with new eyes.  Not a false piety of works righteousness in which there is no hope, but a true piety that hears the Word of God and believes it.  Such a piety is born of faith, which itself is a gift of God through His Word and Spirit, that no one may boast as if they were the authors of their own faith or salvation—a piety which receives the Law as an honest and true witness against our sinful nature demanding our repentance, as well as receiving the Gospel promise of forgiveness, life, and salvation in Jesus Christ alone.  The heart which knows and grieves that while they were yet a sinner, Christ died for them, is the heart which is prepared to receive and rejoice in the blessing of grace by faith in Christ alone, the heart which arises each day in faith and repentance to love as they have been loved, and to walk in the light of God’s Word which has become in incarnate to save them.

 

Regardless of how or whether you keep Lent this season, may the truth which the Holy Spirit uttered through St. Paul inspire you to know most deeply that while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you, and that the love of Christ reaches to the depths of every sinful heart to wash it clean by His own shed blood, that His life might be your life forevermore.  Amen.