This week, our nation is flying flags at half-mast in commemoration of the horrible fact that over 500,000 U.S. citizens have now died of COVID-19 — more than the number of U.S. soldiers who died in WWI, WWII, and Vietnam combined. It has been a year filled with pain: the pain of losing loved ones; the pain of isolation; the pain of community-splitting polarization; the pain of generations of unaddressed racial trauma.

In light of all this, do we really need to celebrate Lent, the season focused on self-sacrifice, sin, and death?? Surely, the Way of the Cross is an extra burden we do not need in this time when we are already so weighed down! We have sacrificed enough. It is time to treat ourselves. Stick to positive thinking. Indulge a little. We deserve it after all we have gone through. We just need to do a little (or a lot of) self-care, and then we can get back to God once we catch our breath.

So goes the thinking of much of our culture, including many pastors and churches who have decided not to participate in Lent this year.

But what if Lent is exactly what we need? 

The recipe for healing in our culture of therapeutic self-help can be summed up like this: “Be good to yourself. We need to make sure that none of our desires are being repressed, because that would be unhealthy. Want that ice cream? Get yourself a pint! Want that new pair of shoes? Treat yourself! Want that promotion? Do whatever it takes and go get it! Don’t take no for an answer!”

It sounds so appealing! And when we decide to give in to one or another craving and “treat ourselves,” it feels great in the moment, does it not? But ask yourself the question: when you look at your life, has therapeutic indulgence ever brought you true healing from the pain you were escaping? Has it brought you true joy and peace?

The problem with this perspective is that it actually creates a kind of reverse repression: a repression of all pain, suffering, and sacrifice through the numbing medicines of distraction and pleasure. And as we have all learned this year, that turns out to be a repression of a huge portion of our life. It is a deadly repression, as pain that we avoid has a way of coming back around in rage, blame, and fear. As one writer, Alissa Case (@littlewaychapel on Instagram), recently put it:

If I’ve learned anything about this country over the last year, it’s that we have no idea how to grieve…And so, instead, we blame through politicizing. We deny through conspiracy theories. We rage through riots. And we avoid by skipping Lent. We are stuck in the first four stages of pandemic grief and if we cannot find our way to acceptance, we will destroy ourselves and one another. 

On this side of Christ’s return, suffering and death are here to stay. The question is: do we have a story to tell that makes room for our pain and gives meaning to the suffering we endure?

Lent says yes.

Lent is many things (see Redeemer’s Lenten resources here). But there are two aspects of Lent in particular that I believe we need more than ever this year.

First, as the writer above suggests, Lent teaches us to grieve. It is a time when we are given courage to finally look God, and ourselves, in the face. It is a time to be honest about the things our culture refuses to admit: that we are limited; that our unrestrained desires are killing us; that we habitually deceive ourselves; that we will die. “For we are dust, and to dust we will return” (Gen. 3:19).

This is not morbidity or “negativity.” It is reality. And it is a reality that needs to be grieved and processed, “for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret” (2 Cor. 7:10). Bringing grief—both grief over our own sin and grief over the ways sin has harmed us through suffering and loss—into the light is the only way healing can happen. There is no way to acceptance except through grief. And Lent gives us the permission to stop covering up our pain with sarcasm, jokes, and self-indulgence.

“If we want to experience peace in our suffering and ‘life to the full,’ the answer is not to bow to our desires; it is to surrender both our desire and our pain to God.”

Lastly, Lent reminds us of the counterintuitive truth that, in Christ, death is the way to life. This is almost impossible for us to believe. We are so used to hearing that the way to fullness of life is to FEED the flesh, that Christ’s call to CRUCIFY our flesh sounds utterly ridiculous. Deny ourselves? That sounds like death! But that is exactly the point. This is the radical Way that Christ reveals to us: that in God’s kingdom, up is down and down is up. If we want to experience peace in our suffering and “life to the full,” the answer is not to bow to our desires; it is to surrender both our desire and our pain to God. 

Because it is in the place of our surrender, the place where we feel most crushed and hopeless, that Christ’s resurrection power is able to be unleashed within us. It is there that New Creation is born. And it is there that we finally are able to hear Christ’s gentle call to us: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

The great mystery that Lent draws us into is that rest from our burdens does not come from refusing to be yoked to anything but our own wants. It does not come by refusing or denying the pain around and within us. Instead, it comes by taking Christ’s yoke upon us and responding to his call to come and die. For when we do, we discover that it is no burden at all—that even as we take up our cross, we discover that he who calls us carries its weight on his own shoulders.

And in a time like ours, that may be what we need to know most of all.