Giving up for Lent, or just giving up entirely?

Every year Fat Tuesday comes to an abrupt end at midnight. New Orleans police shut down the Mardi Gras festivities promptly at 12 a.m. in reverence for Ash Wednesday. The stroke of midnight is the moment Bourbon Street revelers must give it up.

Having lived in New Orleans and graduating from seminary in the Big Easy, there is an eerie silence on the streets on Ash Wednesday. After weeks of large crowds and loud parades with thousands of people lining Canal and St. Charles Avenue for parades both day and night it is almost surreal,

We always think of “giving up” something for Lent. Some people give up meat. Others give up sweets, or alcohol, or television or social media. If you want to face a real Lenten challenge try giving up your cell phone for forty days. But even that might not be enough to get you in a true Lenten mood.

Preacher Kimberly Long tells this story at the beginning of one of her Lenten sermons. Entering church on Ash Wednesday, Nora Gallagher encounters a friend who, when asked what she is giving up for Lent, quips: “Anne’s giving up drinking, Terri’s giving up chocolate, and I’m just giving up.”

Ever feel like that? “Just giving up?”

Sometimes, life presents us with challenges that are incredibly hard. The past three years with the COVID-19 virus and the pandemic caused many people to feel that way. Every aspect of life on was affected. Family, work, and church worship. Much of what we faced was really scary. From fear of getting sick, to job loss, to physical isolation from loved ones. Or just not knowing what comes next.

Thankfully, after three years we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and it is not the proverbial train.

It is hope.

But still if we are honest with our feelings, sometimes we may still feel worn down and unable to cope. Sometimes we may feel so low that we’ve thought about giving up on life. It’s important to remember that you’re not alone in these feelings. Many people before have struggled with feelings of giving up. When you’re feeling bogged down by the struggles you’re experiencing in life, it’s natural to throw your hands up and feel like giving up on life. Know that you are not alone.

That is why I encourage our church family to send cards, make a phone call or if they are tech savvy to text someone a simple word of encouragement from time to time. In the scriptures even Jesus was told to just give up.

“Just give up. Herod is after you. He has you marked for death. Get out of town quick. Give up your mission here.” was the Pharisee’s advice to Jesus.

“Just then some Pharisees arrived to tell him, “You must get right away from here, for Herod intends to kill you.” Luke 13:31

When Jesus heard this warning, he surprises those Pharisees by both disregarding and embracing their message. Jesus dismisses the threat of Herod with a flip and a quip. Herod is nothing but a “sly fox,” Jesus quips, forever plotting but powerless against God’s mission in the world.

“Go and tell that fox,” returned Jesus, “today and tomorrow I am expelling evil spirits and continuing my work of healing, and on the third day my work will be finished. But I must journey on today, tomorrow, and” the next day, for it would never do for a prophet to meet his death outside Jerusalem!” Luke 13:32-33

Jesus has his own schedule, his own agenda, his own mission to fulfill, and the time-frame has already been divinely determined.

But Jesus also asserts he will give up when the time is right according to His father’s plans. Jesus will give himself up. Jesus will travel to Jerusalem and meet head on the traumatic tradition of that city captured in the phrase, “Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.”

In God’s on time, Jesus will give up everything, his very life, in order to fulfill his eternal mission of salvation.

“For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” John 10:17-18

As we travel our journey to Jerusalem with Jesus this Lenten season we must understand and accept that Jesus will “give it up” in order that we might “get it all.”

“In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4:10

Rev. Frank Chlastak began work as senior minister of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Poplar Bluff in 2015. He is a graduate of Northeast Louisiana University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and has served congregations of the Christian Church in Louisiana, Arkansas, Virginia, Oklahoma and Missouri.