In my last post, I wrote about Lent as a spiritual fixit season.  In this post, I want to pick that idea apart.  Lent is a time to not do something, a season of un-self-improvement.  Don’t do anything during Lent except be in Christ.

Paul writes in Colossians that it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:27).  That deep personal communion with Christ lies at the heart of Paul’s theology.  Christ is in us.  We are “in Christ,” “alive to God in Christ,” have “put on Christ,” and been “clothed” with Christ in baptism  (1 Corinthians 1:2; Romans 6:11, 13:14, 13:12; Galatians 3:27). Christ is our very life (Colossians 3:4).

That living relationship with Jesus is the baseline, an ongoing reality, the renewed grounding of our existence as disciples.  We can grow up into him (Ephesians 4:15).  We can come to know him more (Ephesians 1:17).  Our love for him can abound (Philippians 1:9).  But the heart of this spiritual state is a relationship with Jesus.  The Scriptures call it being are “in communion” with him (1 Corinthians 10:16-17).  The word is koinonia, and in the early church it’s the word that gets used for both the spiritual communion of bread and cup and the deep sharing of life together.

Lent is a season to lean into our communion with Christ.  Savor it.  Recognize the reality and power of communion with Jesus to sustain us.  He’s doing “abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).  So we can drop the exertion and stop the work and just be with Jesus.  If anything, rather than Lent being a season of self-work, it’s a time to sharpen our awareness of Jesus’ working.  The prayer we need is centered on seeing, not striving: “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving” (Colossians 4:20).

If you’ve ever experienced Jesus doing a work within you, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s that moment when something shifts, a corner is turned, a breath of fresh air swirls in.  The bottom drops clean out of our curated self-illusions.  And there He is, doing His thing like only He can, and our best response—which we may or may not immediately grasp—is to let God be the God who knows his business with us.  Sit down.  Open your hands.  Wait and breathe.  #betheclay.  

I’ve been there, that arrow-to-the-heart moment when the first chords of the worship song hit with a chiropractic soul crack and the tears trickle out unbidden.  Or unfeigned, uncynical, unplanned peace grasps you when you receive the bread and wine.  Or you put one foot in front of the other right off the plank and into the jaws of the shark frying pan buzzsaw because though clouds and thick darkness surround everything, this path you see.  That’s been my experience: God doing a bigger-than-me thing.  I know others who have been there too. 

So don’t fix yourself during Lent.  Discipleship is not self-improvement.  Jesus has given us all that we need to just be with him.  Lent is recognizing that right here, right now truth.