Next-Wave Ezine > church & culture

Lent: Journeying to the “Dark Side” With Jesus
By Alan B. Ward

Lent is a season in our Christian calendar when we focus on the hardship, suffering, and death of Jesus—we might call it that “dark side” of Jesus. During this season, the lectionary scripture readings follow Jesus from the “bright light” of the Mount of Transfiguration as he descends to the “darkness” of cross of Calvary… and in due time… rises again on Easter morning.

Lent is certainly not as upbeat as Advent and Christmas. Most of us would probably rather skip directly from Christmas to Easter Sunday. In fact, many Christians take that quite literally—i.e., they attend church on Christmas and then don’t come back until Easter. There was a time when Lent was the season where new converts to Christianity were prepared for Baptism, but that isn’t so much the case anymore. (We usually do this on Easter or Pentecost Sunday since attendance is higher those weeks.)

In our modern Western individualistic, consumer-driven culture, it seems that entering into the Lenten journey is now seen as optional. (Until fairly recently, you would be hard pressed to find an Ash Wednesday service in most Protestant churches.) If you choose to do the whole sackcloth and ashes thing during Lent, that’s great, but it’s not required. But if we choose not to journey to the “dark side” with Jesus during Lent then I have to wonder just how meaningful his resurrection can possibly be to us?

In general, our modern world is a world of unbelievable personal comfort and convenience and we don’t like to spend too much time thinking about the “dark side” of life. We are apt to “change the subject” quickly and move on to more pleasant conversation. That may explain why churches are often packed to capacity on Easter Sunday, but not very crowded during Lent. It’s not all that difficult to understand really: Resurrection is simply more uplifting than hardship, suffering, and death!

Jesus experienced a bit of this during his ministry. Every time Jesus bought up the idea that the Messiah would have to suffer and die, his disciples really wanted to “change the subject” and talk about something else more pleasant. They certainly didn’t want to believe that their Messiah would have to die! How could he be the liberating king who would lead the Jews to freedom if he ended up getting arrested and killed by the very people who were holding the Jewish people in bondage? They just couldn’t (or wouldn’t?) allow themselves to comprehend that suffering and death were part of the package. Eventually they would learn… but not until well after the resurrection.

My wife and I have also experienced this reality recently. We gave birth to twin girls last May, and one of the girls was very sick when she was born and only lived two days. The tragedy has obviously rocked our world; almost ten months later, we are still processing our grief and struggling back to our feet. In the past year our family has had to deal with this loss as well as serious health issues for both of our parents, health concerns for our 3-year old son, and the normal struggles of daily life as a ministry family. It has been a very difficult time to say the least.

And yet it seems to me that anytime we bring up our grief, the subject is quickly changed and it becomes very clear that we are “supposed” to talk about more pleasant things. Like the disciples who didn’t want to hear Jesus talking about his impending suffering and death, our friends and family don’t seem to want to hear too many of the details of the “dark side” of our life. And yet that’s precisely where my wife and I have been dwelling for the past year, so naturally it’s what we want and need to talk about. I’m not sure but I suspect others could share similar experiences as they have lived through seasons of hardship, suffering, and death. The journey to the “dark side” of life can be a lonely road to walk.

Now I know it is not necessarily comfortable to go to the “dark side” of our own lives much less someone else’s, and it’s even less comfortable to stay there for an extended period. But, in general, I think that we as Christians need to learn to be a little more comfortable with the “dark side” of life. We need to not to be so quick to “change the subject” with the conversation turns to less pleasant topics. The fact is that darkness is a part of life; it has been since the very beginning and it will be until Christ comes again. As we well know, being a Christian does not exempt us from hardship, suffering, and death in this life. (This past year has certainly been a reminder of that reality for me!) Prayerfully, God gives us strength to endure the circumstances that come our way but we certainly don’t avoid the difficulties that plague life on Earth just because we believe in Jesus.

Lent is a time when we intentionally choose to journey to the “dark side” with Jesus. We voluntarily choose to enter into hardship, suffering, and death—both our own and Jesus’. We ask God to be our light in the darkness to illuminate our path and show us those things in our life that are keeping us from the closer union with God that we desire. Then, we ask God to purge away those things so that we move ever closer to God. Purging is never easy; in fact it is often painful, but purging is necessary if we truly desire to move closer to God. The pattern repeats itself over and over throughout our life. Each time, we move a little closer to the light, more and more obstacles on the path are illuminated that we need God to lovingly purge away so we can experience deeper fellowship together.

I fear that we cheapen the significance of the resurrection if we completely skip over the reality of hardship, suffering, and death in Jesus’ life… as well as in our own lives. If we truly want to experience the full impact of the empty tomb on Easter morning then we have to recognize that the Lenten journey is not optional. The season of Lent invites us to embark on that dark journey to the foot of the cross with Jesus and to stay with him there in the darkness for as long as it takes for God to work in our lives. The good news is we don’t have to make the dark journey by ourselves. In Jesus, we have someone who has already been “there and back again” as it were, and can serve as our guide. I pray that we will embark on the Lenten journey this year, and that you and I will be changed for the better because of our experience.

Alan Ward lives in Baltimore, MD and his writing can be found at Alan's Corner.