Lent is not just an annoying idea

Writing recently in The Guardian, Zoe Williams suggests we should give up Lent altogether. In her view, it’s an annoying idea, always has been and not just for Christians: “Non-christians go as crazy for self-denial as they do for Christmas”. Some people, whatever their beliefs, have taken to having a ‘dry January’. They consume no alcohol for the whole month.

In part, this might be a recovery period for excessive drinking over Christmas and New Year. It might also be driven by statistics telling us we drink more than is good for our health.

The odd thing about a dry January is that it follows a season of Christian celebration, marking the birth of Jesus Christ. It’s a remedy for celebrating badly.

Lent is not like that. As a season of selfdenial, it is a period of preparation for the major event of the Christian year: the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Perhaps the easiest explanation is that Lent is a period of strict rehearsing for what will happen at Eastertime.

The death of Jesus on Good Friday confronts us with some profoundly human experiences: fear, treachery, greed, personal and institutional misuse of power and death itself.

The rising of Jesus from the dead on Easter Day presents the astonishing triumph of truth, love and forgiveness.

Lent is an invitation to put on hold the consumption of things that might reinforce the destructive pattern of Good Friday.

It then invites us to celebrate the Easter virtues that show us our best selves, as God created us to be.

This year, Christians in the diocese of Chichester will have made their own choices about what to give up, in order to prepare for the celebration of new life at Easter.

Giving things up can also be a way of saving money.

We plan to put the money saved by selfdenial towards something that will be a sign of new life. This year, we are giving our Lent savings to Turning Tides, the Worthingbased charity which seeks to give new life to homeless people across Sussex.

Lent is one way of confronting what is deadly and combating it with a commitment to life and hope and joy.

Zoe Williams has got Lent wrong if she thinks it’s just an annoying idea.