March 5, 2025

Adding to Your Life this Lenten Season: What Will You Put On?

Lent has always been a very special time of centering for me. As with Advent, I love the discipline of a measured amount of time to anticipate and prepare. The days leading up to a certain event provide an opportunity to make the event itself more significant and meaningful. Advent means nothing without Christmas. Lent means nothing without Easter. Crucifixion means nothing without resurrection. They are all preludes to the real revelation that lies ahead.

As a boy, I looked forward to the opportunity to anticipate the high and holy days with a time of preparation. I loved my pastor, John. He meant the world to me and surrounded me with love and grace. And yet, he and I took a totally different approach during the season of Lent. Pastor John would always begin Lent by announcing what he was going to be “giving up” for the season. Every year it was something different: soda, certain foods, or a favorite television program. And, every year, I would quietly ask myself “What difference does it make?”

In my quiet revolt, I decided long ago that instead of “giving up” something for Lent, I would instead discern something that I would acquire or “put on” for the 40 days (not including Sundays) leading up to Easter. My passion was and remains to seriously think about what I should add to my life that would bless and complement my spiritual journey.

What practice needs to be engaged or re-engaged that will make me a better disciple? What is something that I have neglected or something that has fallen by the wayside that, when revitalized, will bless my spiritual life?

Over the years I have “put on” a day of fasting, a daily time of quietness, a commitment to listen more deeply. I have added things like an intentional day of service in the community, a conversation with someone I haven’t connected with for years, or a daily written note to someone who has come to mind. Often, when Easter has past, I still find myself practicing the discipline that I have added during the season of Lent as a boy.

Currently, it seems that every day presents us with something that calls us to respond. The world is changing quickly, and in a high-tech, high-touch, quick-response world we must be always ready to act! As spiritual leaders, it’s up us to inject the principles of grace, hope, justice, joy, and love into the conversations that often are devoid of these core theological principles that ground our faith.

And yet, if we empty ourselves in a posture of sacrificial service and do not replenish our spiritual tanks, we will find ourselves reacting to rapidly unfolding events rather than responding in a way that’s reflective of the Christ-like life we are called to live.

What that means for me is that every day must be a sabbath day. Every day should include “sabbath moments” of prayer, reflection, penitence, and peace. Every day the “addition” of sabbath practices can be the preparation we need in order to be more nimble and responsive in a rapidly changing world.

What will you “add” to your life this Lenten season? The Apostle Paul offers an excellent suggestion. In Romans 13, Paul makes this urgent appeal to the Christians in Rome, a place of great conflict and tension between opposing forces (sound familiar):

Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Romans 13: 11-14, NRSV Updated

It's pretty simple, really: Wake up, the day is near! Throw off anything that breeds negativity and darkness! Add the things that bear witness to the light! Most of all, “put on” Christ and let this daily addition not only bless you but bless the world around you with the visible reminders of “the way, the truth, and the life!”

May each of you have a holy and blessed Lenten season.

The Journey Continues, . . .

Thomas J. Bickerton
Resident Bishop
The New Hope Episcopal Area