It's The Advent Season; Give It Up.

Happy Ash Wednesday! I don’t know how catchy a greeting that is but maybe I’ll start a new trend.

Of the two advent seasons, this may be the more important. I only say that as it is in anticipation of the Christ’s resurrection whereas the other is in anticipation of Christ’s birth. I don’t mean to demean his birth, but without the resurrection his death is a statistic and his birth a newspaper clipping. Ultimately, I am encouraging people to grab a hold of this advent season as a powerful way to prepare and change.

In Christ’s death and resurrection he shows a mastery and ownership of death. I love that the story also includes a struggle of wills with Christ clearly not thrilled with the process and yet submitting to his father. This idea of battling wills is central to my thoughts on the power of this season and the value of the discipline of adopting a Lenten posture. I am trying to prepare myself for his ownership.

If Christ can handle the responsibilities of owning death, he should be able to handle the responsibilities of owning our obedience. In essence, there is safety in being obedient to him as he will be better able to care for us than we could ourselves.  To me this suggests that the biggest obstacle to living under that umbrella of care is free will. Fortunately, free will is, by definition free of limits. The most dramatic expression of free will is to give it up. Other wise you are just changing its expression.

I think, then, that the value of this advent season lies in being able to give up my will in some area which I have traditionally maintained independent control and to release my control of it to Christ. This is fairly different from the frequent decisions to abstain from something or increase prayer or giving. I have no problem with any of those things, but I think it can be even more profound. I am not encouraging you to give up the thing, but the control over the thing.

If you are interested in trying this, find an area of your life which you have held as being your own. Frequently someone close to you might see this better than you. You also can start with what you consider your strengths as these are often the areas for which we maintain the most authority. For me, typically, I find that I exercise the most independence over my time.

For this season, I am giving up my control of my time spent in escapism. With the limitations of March weather (I’m really a summer person), the potential boredom of this quiet season, the difficulty of working on the house, and the stress of my IRS/DOR issues, I find myself expert in the art of pretending I am doing good and proper things when, in truth, I am involved in busy work to escape from the pressure of either the things I should do or the limitations of what I want to do. 

Unfortunately, this requires a constant vigilance to evaluate my actions and motivations. What I have experienced in the past, and what I hope in this season, is that by the time we celebrate Christ’s arising and renewal, there is a person more available to celebrate and understand the freedom offered. And like a child disciplined, I need to find freedom in submission and submission through release of my will. Happy Ash Wednesday!