Lent: You can forget the fish

What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear "Lent?" For some, it may be an extra measure of sorrow and sadness. For others, the color purple or Wednesday night services. For others, fish. 

All of these are fine ways to observe Lent, but I think you'd agree with me that Lutherans are most familiar with the sorrow and sadness and least familiar with the fish.

In Lent, we focus on our sorrow and repentance after we have sinned. But another side of Lent – possibly the side that we lose sight of – is the dedication and devotion to avoid sin in the first place. It is a sanctified determination to live righteously as God’s chosen people.

Jesus, by His own determination, dedication and devotion, not only paid the price for our sins, but provides the power for our own determined, dedicated and devoted path of service to God and others – the least of which is fish during Lent.

When tempted to sin, to make things enjoyable for Himself, Jesus said, "I can't, I won't." When tempted to come down from the cross, to make things easier for Himself, Jesus said, "I can't, I won't." He chose to lose sleep, He chose to be ridiculed, He chose to live like a poor man, and He chose to die so that we wouldn't be condemned.

It's not so much that Jesus "couldn't" come down from the cross, it's that He "wouldn't" come down from the cross. He wouldn’t come down so we would be saved. As the hymn writer so eloquently puts it: “God was there on Calvary, God the Father’s only Son, Dying that the world might live, There on Calvary.” (CW: 140)

Filled with Jesus' love, we also say "I won't" when tempted to make things enjoyable or easy for ourselves at the expense of others. Filled with Jesus' love, we choose to make God's Word and worship our gift to him, as much as it's a gift to us. Filled with Jesus' love, we choose to spend less and less on our wants and more and more on less-fortunate lambs and lost sheep. Filled with Jesus' love, we choose to give up things that make us give in to temptation, we choose to do what our spouse likes, we choose to be nice to those who aren't nice to us, and we choose to suffer instead of sin. With a Spirit-given faith we accept our cross to follow Jesus throughout Lent and beyond.

It's not that we can't do anything else, it's that, with Jesus and His love in us, we don’t want to do anything else.

Fish during Lent is a choice some people make. But Lent is more than giving up steak or chocolate or something else during these 40 days. Lent isn’t about avoiding things that give us pleasure. It is about avoiding sin. It is about approaching our Savior for strength to avoid the sin and for forgiveness once we’ve committed the sin.

Forget the fish. Focus on the sin. Then focus on your Savior.

In the name of our God who was there on Calvary,

Pastor Michael Zarling