The First Sunday in Lent

Lent:  A Season for Holiness

The Great Litany is one of the main focal points of our worship on this First Sunday in Lent. English speaking Christians have been praying the Great Litany since the mid-1500’s. I like the Great Litany. Partly for that sense of historical continuity and significance. But mostly for its comprehensiveness. It covers almost every conceivable aspect of human life. We pray for God’s presence and help with everything! A reminder that we need to pray for God’s presence and help with everything…

There is one aspect of human life, though, that is not explicitly covered in the Great Litany. Time. The role of time in our lives.

I’ve been thinking about time this Lent. The Brothers of the Society of St. John the Evangelist are focusing on time this year in the Lenten materials that they provide for the use of the broader church (available HERE).

The Brothers point out that when God created the Sabbath as a part of creation, God created time as a part of the fullness of creation. And God called it holy. The Sabbath is God’s gift of time. Like the stars, the seas, the land, the rich and glorious diversity of life, time has been created and comes to us as God’s gift.

It’s actually easier for me to remember that time is a gift than it is to remember other aspects of life are gifts. We tend to persuade ourselves that much of what comes to us in life comes to us through our own skill or devices. But not time. There is absolutely nothing we can do to acquire time.

The Brothers point out that our relationship with time is complicated. I think of just some of the phrases we use that mention time. “Marking time.” Which means going nowhere, accomplishing nothing meaningful or useful. “Losing track of time.” Sometimes that’s good; sometimes it’s bad. “Buying time.” What an arrogant idea! Yet, actually, we often say “just” buying time with a tone of resignation; a reminder of the futility of human efforts to control time. Or an expression that I find terrible: “Killing time.” Killing time. Destroying the potential for life’s goodness.

The Brothers use another term. They talk about how, as sinful human beings, we pollute time. I find that a vivid expression. We pollute the gift of time we’ve been given. We could use that term, I think, to talk about sin in other areas of life, too. We pollute relationships. We pollute our own bodies. We pollute other parts of God’s creation that we have been given. We pollute God’s gift of time.

It’s not busyness or idleness that’s the problem. We can be busy and pollute time. Or we can be idle and pollute time. The issue is how we value and use this wondrous resource. The gift of time.

As many of you may remember, there is a place in the Ash Wednesday service where the officiant invites everyone to the observance of a holy Lent. I was particularly struck this year with how that invitation describes Lent as a “season,” or a “time.”

Lent is a season. And think about it… a season is a span of time that has some particular quality associated with it. Not just any chunk of time, but a span of time characterized by some quality. Lent is a season for holiness. We are called to the observance of a holy Lent. Holy means set aside for God. Lent is a span of time set aside for God. A time to spend time with God. A time to renew our relationship with God.

Lent is a gift of time. A gift of a season of time for holiness.

Cherish that gift of time, the gift of the Lenten season. Use that gift of time to be with God. Whether you want to work on redeeming the holiness of time in your life or maybe you want to work on some other aspect of your life that needs redeeming. Use the season of Lent. It is a gift of time. A season of holiness.