Must be More : The Season of Darkness

Yesterday we watched as the annual passing of the sacrifice occurred.  


Hundreds of people gathered in the street in front of EBS, many banging drums, most dancing wildly, many dressed in bright colors and masks, many reeking of clairen, many carrying huge baskets of food on their heads, and several men in the middle carrying a life-sized doll of a white man who looked a lot like Santa Clause.


He had money pinned all over his jacket and pants...some small and some Haiti-Huge....we even saw some 100 dollar bills, coming from "Lot Bo", everyone said (literally "the other side", meaning "The United States").  


The grim Santa and his merry adorers were heading down the road to his "death", a "sacrifice" that takes place annually.  He, all of his money and all of his baskets of food (in a community of starving people) were burned last night at midnight.


It is said that those who gave him money will be given good luck this year...the amount of luck based on the amount of the bill.  He is a very professional demon, and doesn't work for free.  His blessings come at a price, a price, as it seemed yesterday, many were happy to pay.


This has been happening now for decades.  


No one really wanted to talk much about the whys and whats...it was a day to be carefree and carnal, not to consider.  The church speakers from the two Saccanville churches blared in competition with the drums and chanting throughout the afternoon, youth and little ones hoarded inside so as to not be affected by what one emaciated and adorable 4 year-old told me was "the stuff of Satan."


I don't know.  We've lived here a long time now, and Voodoo is still something very deeply rooted that leaves us with more questions than answers.


This is what I know.  There is no place God is not.  


Today we remember that we are but dust, and to dust we will return.  This was not hard for me to consider for myself.  Whispering the reminder over my sleeping, soft-cheeked gift from God was choking.  


Dust.  But dust worth dying for.  There is no place God is not.


We are now in a season to consider our sin.  To consider ourselves without all the puffing and primping and positive thinking.  


It's dark.  But there is no place God is not.


We are approaching a day of celebration, but it is just as importantly preceded by days of blackest night.  He died.  Was dead.  I killed him.  Laid dead in a dark cave.  But there is no place God is not.


Jesus wasn't invited to the parade yesterday, nor was anyone interested in even the thought of Him.  


But He was there.  There is no place that God is not.


I have awoken to mornings of the deepest pain, suffered in dark lonely corners, hidden in silent despair of the heart...I have chosen my way, I have forgotten to invite Him (or chosen not to) and I have chosen myself over my God.  


But there is no place God is not.


Praise the Lord, this Lent, this season of darkness.  He is still there.  I praise Him.




Giving up food has always turned into a diet or weight loss competition in my mind...it's always been about my own strength.  So we'll keep our rice and beans this year (though I'm giving up ice cream!...wait a minute...)


We talked as a couple and wanted to give Him an extra space of time each day to invest in His Word.  We already don't have tv, don't have movie theaters, don't have shopping malls, don't have fast-food etc.  But at least 5 evenings a week, once we finally get the girls down and can't think about work any more, we pop in a release and enjoy being transported for an hour or so to some other world where there is no laundry, no papers to grade, and no one is starving and burning food for Satan.


Probably 7-10 hours a week. So for the next 46 days (40 days, not counting Sundays), we won't be watching movies at our house, and in that space we have intentionally created, we will be filling it with His Word and talking over coffee with Him.


As much as we enjoy temporarily forgetting the heartbreaks of life, pending decisions and stresses of ministry and work and home with movies, I am genuinely excited about a chance for God to actually SPEAK to those worries and burdens...something an inanimate DVD is unable to do.


I'm also working through a Bible reading/Lent activity plan with Lily...you can check it out here!  This went really well today and I am excited about this opportunity to hide His Word in our hearts together and to begin focusing more deliberately on what He did for us. 




Whatever you decide to do, or not do, this Lent, help me remember that it's not about what I have done, can do, want to do, or try to do, not about my dusty self or my wretched ways.  It's His love that wants the space with ME, His love that calls me to repent, His love that called Him to the cross, and His love that gives me new life beside Him.


It's a dark season.  But there is no place that God is not.


Good Lent!

Must be More : The Journey of Lent

The forty days of Lent (meaning "lengthen") are meant to be a reminder of the 40 days of rain during Noah's flood, in which God cleansed the world; the 40 years of desert wandering, in which God purified Israel; the 40 days of Jesus' fasting in the desert in preparation for his ministry.

There are several traditional ways that these are remembered: fasting, repentance and giving...though I think God probably welcomes ANY way that we deliberately focus on His work in our lives.

FAST

The point of Lenten fasting to me always seemed to be one of depravity and denial... trying to make ourselves suffer so that we could somehow better relate to His suffering on the Cross, or an attempt to show Him how much we love Him based on how much we were willing to give up.  

However, I'm realizing that pointless Lenten fasting might occur when we are completely absorbed with ourselves and what we are doing for God.  

Our sacrifice is not going to somehow earn His favor or make us more acceptable to God.  It can't!  We can't make ourselves LESS of sinners, any more than we can pardon ourselves for our own sin.

Lent is, after all, a prelude Christ's death--the ultimate expression of God's grace!

So here's what I'm realizing this year:  The point of Lent isn't what I give up...or even if I give up anything!  The point is that I'm intentionally creating space in my life for my relationship with God.

I love what KC Ireton has to say about fasting:  

"Fasting, when done with proper motives, is an amazingly fruitful way to create space, for it creates in us an emptiness--where there used to be something, now there is a blank, a hole, a space.

"Throughout history, fasting has been the practice of abstaining from food.  However, the definition of fasting has now expanded to include abstaining from any number of things--shopping, media, novels, driving, the news, etc.  

"Since the purpose of a Lenten fast is to create space in our lives for God, it makes sense that, in our consumption-driven and media-saturated culture, we would fast from things other than food.

"We need the space and time to be able to listen to God, as our lives are often too full for us to hear what He might be trying to say.  

"Once we have that space, we can cultivate it through another traditional Lenten discipline: the prayerful reading and study of Scripture.  There is a lovely symbiosis here: by filling the time or space that our fasting has created with Scripture, we open ourselves to having our hunger and thirst for the Word of God reawakened...create a space in which another hunger--for God's Word--can be satisfied."

REPENT

Just like fasting, and Lent in general, repentance might carry a negative connotation, too.  Perhaps images of self-loathing or self-punishment come to mind, especially as we think of how much our sins pain Him.  

However, more often than a temptation to self-loathe there seems to be today a temptation to write off our sins as "personality quirks" or even as "just how I am" or "just the way God made me."  We try hard, and are doing our best...so we tend to have a lot of grace for our sins.  

I don't want to have grace for that which separates me from my Holy God!

I'm looking forward, instead, to this Lent Season being a time that I can ask Him to help me re-evaluate my heart and my life, and to show me my sins, my shortcomings, for what they are.  

I have failed...miserably.  Failed to love my husband and girls like I should.  Failed to judge not!  Failed to pray when I said I would.  Failed to spend time with Him like I had promised.  Failed to love others as I should, failed to give of myself freely, failed to prioritize with His perspective.    

But it's not just important that we come to echo Paul's grief: "oh, wretched man that I am!  Who will save me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24) but that we can PRAISE God for showing it to us so that we can repent from it!  He loves us enough to have more for us!  He desires our repentance so that we can be free from bondage.

I don't want these sins to be any part of me!  I don't want to carry them or be identified by them.  I want the full freedom that He has promised for a life in Him.  

When we repent, we acknowledge that we are in bondage to sin, and God, in his mercy and grace, frees us to live as the people we were meant to be.  Praise the LORD.  I want that this Lent!!

GIVE

Embracing that we are but dust, and that we are deeply sinners as well, is not to make us depressed, but is simply to remind us who we are---just humans, utterly dependent upon the mercy and loving-kindness of God. 

Knowing this, we can give others the same mercy God has given us, sharing with those who are in need.  

We can give of our money, of our time or of our gifts, sharing what we have, helping in a situation we may know there is pain or need.  We could volunteer once a week or give donations or support a cause...however we feel led.  

I love the idea of somehow pairing the fast with the giving...such as fasting from buying shoes and using the money you would have spent to buy new shoes for a family in need, or fasting from going to the movies and using that money to send a young couple to the movies...saving the money you would have spent on food and giving it to your local food pantry, etc.  

Maybe after thinking through all this, you will decide to disregard Lent and focus instead on upcoming Easter week, and of course, that's ok!  

But as I have been studying and researching and meditating on this opportunity to create space in my life for Him to remind me who I am (dust...but dust worth dying for), to be free of sins that I've become comfortable with or maybe aren't even aware of, to show others the same mercy He has marvelously shown me, and to fill the dark season of Lent with the Light of His Word and presence, I am GRATEFUL.  

I have missed it for 29 years.  This year, unburdened by superstitious rites, self-deprivation and uncertainty, I will spend Lent reckoning with the reality of darkness and death, the reality of my sin and His mercy...best-of-all, with HOPE.

How?  Tomorrow...

 

Must be More : Ash Wednesday

The first day of the season of Lent, Ash Wednesday (coming from the ancient practice of placing ashes on worshipper's heads as a sign of humility) holds a vital reminder that I have previously written off as, well...depressing.  


This is it:  You, me, from the kings of the world to our chubby cheeked children... all are dust, and to dust we will return.


In the early years of the church, Lent was only a forty-hour fast, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, fasting the time that Jesus was in the grave.  Eventually, it become a forty day stretch (not counting Sundays which are feast days).  It no longer was just an expression of sorrow over Christ's death, but instead an expression of sorrow over what CAUSED His death: my sin.

In the early church, ashes were only used to mark the foreheads of those who had made a public confession of sin and sought to be restored into the fellowship of the church.  But, over the years others began to desire to show their humility and identification as a sinner by being marked, as well.  

Why is it so important to dwell on being dust?  On being sinners?


Because the whole season of Lent is compressed in these: The painful reminder of our mortality, the sadness that comes from the reality of having to let go of all we hold dear, and the agonizing proclamation of Jesus' death on our behalf, thus the hope of resurrection. 


Here's what Kimberlee Conway Ireton believes (The Circle of Seasons), and I believe she is right:  "The hope of resurrection is not yet realized.  Lent has now begun, and I need--we all need--to live in this space, the dark place between the ashes and the bread and cup, between the declaration of our mortality and the declaration of Christ's redeeming work on our behalf.


"That is what Lent is--a time to reckon with the reality of darkness and death.  We do so with hope, because this season of darkness ends in Easter, in resurrection, in new life.  But we can be raised to a new life only if we have first died to the old one.  THAT is the challenge--and the gift--of Lent."


Ash Wednesday not only prefigures the mourning at the death of Jesus, but also places us in a position to realize the consequences of sin.  It is a somber day of reflection on what needs to change in our lives if we have fully died to ourselves, and are to be fully alive in Him.  


It is fitting that Lent begins with a soot cross marked on our foreheads because from it's earliest, Lent has been a season of dying, of giving up, of clearing out, of emptying...


Not emptying for the sake of emptiness, but so God can fill us with Himself.


Tomorrow...the journey of Lent, and then, what Lent is shaping up to be around here.

Must be More : Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras is French (or Haitian Creole) meaning "Fat Tuesday", referring to the practice of the last night of eating richer, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday.  It can also be called Shrove Tuesday, with "shrove" meaning "confess".


Carnival, meaning "removal of meat", is just another name for the three day celebration of Mardi Gras right before Ash Wednesday.

Celebrated in many places with parades, costumes, dancing and music, some cultures, especially in the Portuguese culture of Brazil, the French culture of Louisiana, and some of the Caribbean cultures such as Trinidad and Haiti, have tended to take on the excesses of wild and drunken revelry.  (which is why I can barely hear myself THINK tonight!)

However, this was originally a festival practiced by the same people who would be fasting during the season of Lent.  The forty days of Lent (Creole "Karèm") is associated with the a trial or preparation in the stories of Noah, Moses and Jonah.  Following in the footsteps of Adam's road and Israel's 40 years of testing, Jesus was taken by the Spirit into the desert for 40 days, fasting instead of following Adam and the Israelites in demanding the food they craved.


But He didn't just fast.  He also resisted Satan's temptation with God's Word... Jesus was the Last Adam and the unwavering, Faithful Israel who fulfilled the trial not only for Himself, but also for us.


Therefore, Lent wasn't historically only a time to fast from foods like Jesus did, but to flee from sin, like Jesus did.  Because people were entering into a time when they were seeking to resist the temptation to sin, as Jesus did in the wilderness, Mardi Gras was originally created as a chance to "get your sins in there" and eat as much as you can (hence: Fat Tuesday) just 
before you had to be like Jesus.


The church in Haiti tries to combat carnal celebrations of Mardi Gras by holding youth retreats at various churches that include 3 or 4 other sister churches.  Matt, Junior and Leandre are spending Monday morning teaching at one such retreat, and the church here in Saccanville is hosting 50 youth from two other churches.  Most of our students are involved in such "set apart" retreats today and tomorrow.   


I wonder if perhaps many Christians' discomfort with Lent today comes simply from a repugnance toward Mardi Gras and its traditional indulgence in sin. 


Perhaps many Christians have also chosen not to observe Lent because we have wrongly considered Lenten fasting, giving things up, ash on your forehead, etc., as evidence that we believe we must do these things to be saved.  


We believe we were saved by grace--and therefore don't have to do any of that!  


But maybe Lent isn't about having to do anything at all.  


That's getting into the really good stuff for tomorrow...


For now, I'm dwelling on what Matt shared at a little tarp church in La Plonge Sunday morning. 


"The death of Jesus does not grant us license to sin.  He never sinned.  We never should.  The same Holy Spirit that dwelled in Him he shares with us.  Because of this, we never have permission to indulge in what is flesh, in what is carnal.  It is our sin that caused Christ's death!  Please don't forget that it was me.  It was you.  It was us that nailed Him to that cross.  May His grace never be in vain!"

Must be More

Every Sunday night for the past six Sundays we have been encroached upon by a combination of loud disco music, endless chanting and the steady banging of drums. 


It is the season of Carnival.  


Undoubtedly the most obviously and outwardly celebrated holiday of the Haitian calendar, Carnival doesn't officially begin until tomorrow and lasts through Tuesday.  Nonetheless, these months of Sunday serenades have prepared us, and bands of men dripping in oil and hidden by masks and camo have stopped our truck the last several weeks, drawing crowds and asking for money.


Once in high school I gave up candy, ice cream and desserts for Lent, which, if you know me, was a really big thing.  I do not at all recall any spiritual motivation there, or how I was thinking that necessarily glorified God.  I do recall making up for it by eating 40 days worth of Peeps on Easter, which again, if you know me, was not a big thing.


And that is my extent of personal experience with Lent aside from a passing thought or stand-alone sermon.

Preparing for Mardi Gras this year, which usually just means being on house-arrest for a few days and maybe a day or two off school, really has me thinking this year. 

Why in the world does Haiti, and so many other places, do this?  What should our response be as Christians?  


And what about Lent?  Is it just a Catholic thing?  Is there something we should be doing, as His children and as a family, during this time?  


Does Lent have an evangelical purpose?  Can and should Lent be used as a teaching opportunity, for my students and for my children...and for myself?  


Most...Could this rather dark, carnal and discouraging time in Haiti be MORE? A time of something glorifying and beautiful that we could place at His feet?  Surely.


So, I've started to do my homework, started to put together a 40 day reading/craft program that is toddler appropriate for Lily, started to do lots of research and lots of prayer through what our response should be to Mardi Gras and what role Lent should/could play in my relationship with Him.  


Mind if I share???