Thankful that the Drudgery of Lent Makes Jesus’ Easter Victory Sweeter!

Do you ever get tired of the same bad news over and over again? For example, if I exercise, and if I watch what I eat, and then I step on the scale and it says the same as it has the last few weeks, months even, that is frustrating bad news. If a person goes to the doctor, and time and again they hear bad news about their health, that’s discouraging. If I work and work to improve a relationship with someone I care about, yet I seem to be getting nowhere, there is drudgery and sadness in that continuing bad news.

In my daily devotions we have been reading through the prophets for quite a while! For the last month and a half we have read Jeremiah, Lamentations, and now we are reading in Ezekiel. The prophets seem to have the same message over and over again. This message points to the idolatry and sin God’s people. The message of the prophets then tells the gloom and bad news of God’s coming judgment for the people’s rebellion.

For example, as I read the Bible verses for my devotions on Tuesday, March 11, God spoke to the people through Ezekiel, “Thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!’” (Ezekiel 13:31) The people of Israel are ignoring God’s Word, ignoring His law, and instead they are listening to their own minds and their own feelings. Such rebellion has caused them to miss God’s love. Such rebellion has led to God’s discipline. But, unfortunately this is the same message spoken by Moses, and by Samuel, and Elijah, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and by all the prophets. Time and again we hear about the same bad choices from God’s people, and we hear the same bad news of His coming judgment.

Do you ever feel like the season of Lent . . . drags on, and on, and on? While ‘Lent’ means ‘Spring,’ this season of the church year focuses on the opposition faced by Jesus because of the sins of the people. We read about the pride and the doubt of Jesus’ disciples. We look at the hostility of the religious leaders against Jesus. We see wayward and wandering people who resist Jesus’ teachings about the Messiah and about His kingdom. Do you think Jesus ever felt discouraged by facing the same sinful opposition over and over again? Do you think that Jesus, the Son of God, ever felt drudgery over dealing with the same issues spoken of again and again by the Old Testament prophets?

I do hear such feelings in Jesus’ words in the Gospel lesson assigned for the coming Sunday, the Second Sunday in Lent. “34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 35 Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Luke 13:34-35)

Perhaps you know that the season of Lent has 40 days (not including Sundays), and is intended to remind us of the wilderness wanderings of the people of Israel. They traveled in the desert for 40 years, often lost, dealing with the trials of life as they approached the Promised Land. But, at the end of their journey, they received the promises of God. The difficulties and drudgery of the wilderness made the land of promise even more sweet.

Our observance of Lent, a time when we consider the opposition and sin faced by our Lord, continues to the ultimate end of His death, but then to His resurrection. Realizing our own waywardness, and understanding that we deserve God’s judgment, makes the forgiveness of His Cross and the victory of the empty tomb the sweetest news of all. In a way, the ‘drudgery’ of Lent makes the love of Jesus’ sacrifice, the forgiveness of His cross, and the eternal life of Easter even more sweet. When we know that we deserve God’s judgment, His forgiveness and grace is AMAZING!

I cherish the time which I spend in the wilderness each Spring, considering my need for a Savior. I rejoice each year at the forgiveness and salvation we experience through Jesus’ victory in Holy Week.

May this season of Lent, when we consider and repent of our sin, lead you to understand the depth of the Good News of Jesus’ forgiveness, and His gift of eternal life. May your Lenten walk lead you to Jesus, and lead you to rejoice in the sweet experience of His saving love.